I own one of these - bought it pre-made years ago rather than assembling the kit myself. It's a ton of fun, and really does give me a more-intuitive sense of direction. After wearing it for a while around places I go to regularly, I keep that intuitive sense of direction without having to wear it.
I've mostly stopped wearing it though, because it looks a lot like a GPS-based parole-monitoring device, and I got tired of questions/comments :)
One of the "hmm... things to make" is a lidar detector for things behind a car that then is mapped to an array of the vibration motors that are in the back of a driver's seat - so that you could feel a car passing you.
I drive a Chevy Suburban (6 kids), its a huge car and can be hard to see my surroundings. When I'm backing out of a parking spot, it will vibrate the left or right side of my seat if a car is coming from the appropriate direction. It'll also do the same if it senses you're drifting into another lane or if you are changing lanes purposefully (blinker on) and someone is in my blindspot. It is extremely convenient
My math teacher would say that the wise Indian parks his horses the direction of escape. Why not back into the parking spot and pull out forward? The overreliance on tech is frightening.
> In all spaces marked for city administered public parking within the city, all vehicles shall be parked with the front end of the vehicle facing into the space provided for parking. It shall be unlawful for any person to back any vehicle into such parking space. No person shall stand or park a vehicle other than at the angle to the curb or into the roadway other than as indicated by signs or markings.
I recall this being the case in Palo Alto for city lots at one time and I believe that San Francisco city lots are similarly ordinanced.
Unless you know the city, it's safest to park "the standard way". No one wants to get a ticket in an out of state city.
Furthermore, there is some "unless you do have a backup camera, the backing into a spot between two cars is more difficult than going in forwards and then using the lot space upon leaving to properly orient."
Lastly, if you are to make use of the trunk of the car, most parking lots are set up to allow easier access when not backed in.
> I recall this being the case in Palo Alto for city lots at one time and I believe that San Francisco city lots are similarly ordinanced.
Anecdotally this does not seem to be the case any more, I live in the area and have never been ticketed for backing in. I usually don’t park any other way. You know, in case of zombies and I have to leave quickly.
> Unless you know the city, it's safest to park "the standard way”.
Depends on the city. Which requires…knowing the city? Or at least looking about. So I think that dismisses any idea that one should default to nose-in. Just park like everyone else is doing if you’re so worried. Only thing I’ve seen people ticketed for in SF is not curbing their wheels, which, likely you won’t notice or know about if you’re from out of town.
> Furthermore, there is some "unless you do have a backup camera, the backing into a spot between two cars is more difficult than going in forwards and then using the lot space upon leaving to properly orient."
This is only the case if you have never practiced backing up. It’s actually much easier to make precise movements when you’re reversing, due to the front wheel steering. I’m grateful that this was taught to me by my driving course.
> Lastly, if you are to make use of the trunk of the car, most parking lots are set up to allow easier access when not backed in.
Note that this is for "for city administered public parking within the city" and doesn't apply to private / commercial lots (which may have their own parking restrictions).
I think nose in for 45 degree parking spots makes sense.
There's probably a practicality argument to be made for 90 degree parking to be nose in, because I think it probably results in less blocking of the road is drivers are forced to do the "easier/quicker" front first drive into a spot when arriving avoiding extended time doing "complicated reversing manoeuvres" while other people are trying to get past, and are forced to wait in the parking spot for a big enough gap in traffic (or another driver wanting the spot) before backing out.
I would be wary about replacing a mirror and turning your head with such a system so its main advantage that you don't need to take your eyes off the oncoming road is moot.
As a supplemental system the advantages would include redundancy, lack of a blind spot, and better situational awareness even when you're not planning to change lanes.
because you don't have to turn your head to check; and sometimes you can't hear cars approaching (especially EVs or when there's wind that masks the sound). Mirrors don't provide full visibility and it's also harder to judge the distance and speed of approach (which the radar provides).
yes, exactly this. I thought for sure the radar unit was a gimmick and I'd be returning it, but after seeing so many positive reviews I ordered it to give it a shot. It consistantly tells me there is a car (and how many) well before I hear it.
With a mirror I'd have to be constantly checking which not only takes my eyes off the road ahead, it makes the ride much less enjoyable.
I hadn't considered it until I met a couple this summer who were bikepacking from Seattle to SF. They told me it was one of those items you don't think you need until you get it and then you wonder how you did without it.
It's like blind spot monitoring and rear cameras on cars. I'd been driving without those for decades, but now that I have them I wouldn't buy a car without them.
The Varia radar also connects to the Wahoo bike computer, which is great.
Yes, that's my setup - Varia and Wahoo. I have the original Wahoo from 2015 - 7 years and they're still updating the firmware so that it supports new stuff like radar.
Why not use all of them? Saves having to glance at the mirror consistently, keeping your eyes on the road in front of you, while still having the mirror to check when your other sensor tells you to
It's not like a car, because your person is so much narrower than the structure of a car, less of the rear view is blocked width wise. You just put them towards the outsides of the handlebars and angle them inwards a bit. With careful placement you can have really good awareness of what's going on behind you, both directly and side to side. Oddly not very common on bicycles, but mandated on motorcycles.
I ride a motorcycle and bicycle regularly. I generally don't focus my mirrors on right behind me.
At most, when I'm at a red light, I lean over slightly to make sure the next person is actually going to stop and not rear-end me. Otherwise, while in motion, I have never felt the need for a rearview mirror on any form of two-wheeled vehicle.
I always wished the throttle to be linked to slip sensor on wheels, say push back throttle a bit more when the wheels start slipping and not just wonders why WOT doesn't accelerate as fast as usual all while ECU is pulling power because of slip
> Because of the plasticity of the brain, it has been shown that most wearers gain a new sense of absolute direction, giving them a superhuman ability to navigate their surroundings.
So you would say that this quote isn't exaggeration?
I wouldn't call it superhuman, but it definitely improves it a lot. I think it's helped in general with my sense of direction, but it's a lot less noticeable in an unfamiliar place (if I'm not wearing it).
If I start in a familiar place, then go into somewhere unfamiliar, like a new building, my ability to keep track of cardinal directions is significantly better, which helps keep me oriented to e.g. find my way out of the building.
I was not good at sensing direction until I learned to fly. After I had been flying a year or two, my intuitive sense of direction on the ground became fairly keen, even when I moved to another state or even to Europe.
There are certain places that trip up my sense of direction, especially Spokane, WA. In that city, south feels west to me, and strongly so. Weird.
When I travel in the US your "sun in the south at midday" _really_ messes things up.
And when I'm in London and there's no detectable angle to the sun through the clouds, and all medium distance travel happens on the underground, I'm even more completely lost. I have friends in Maida Vale, Edgeware Rd and Marylebone , and I _know_ they're all within walking distance, but there's no way I could dead reckon my way from one to the other. All I know is how to get from there right tube station exit to their houses or nearest pub/cafe...
I haven't used a device like this, but I don't think this is exaggeration. It is well known in linguistics that speakers of languages that use absolute directions are better at determining where north is. People that use the chime feature on their watches to indicate every hour also tend to have a better sense of time. It is also a successful tool for people trying to lucid dream (the "reality checks" are similar in behavior). We also know that one can become better at spatial directions through practice, which is why it is "common" advice to drive around when moving to a new city without a GPS (until necessary). It helps build that mental map in your head (which often generalizes) and tells your brain to pay attention to other correlating features (e.g. I wouldn't be surprised if this North Paw experiment gave users better sense of time with respect to the sun).
It should be no surprise that as one becomes accustomed to one's own environment and the way they navigate it.
Though I think the cooler question is if we can build a phone/smart-watch app that can do this. Is there a way to vibrate the watch in a northernly direction or something like vibrating when the user turns north (deceptively tricky).
GPS in map rotating mode is terrible for spatial awareness. I always keep it in fixed north-upwards mode and I found it does wonders for both navigating streets quickly and for getting to know the layout of wider area.
I have what you might describe as a "spidey sense" about whether a photo depicting a North American coastal scene is on the Atlantic, the Pacific, or something else like Lake Erie. You might have this feeling also.
I suspect it comes from an innate, unconscious comprehension of the highlights and the shadows (since the sun will typically be in the south). And I don't mean the obvious shadows but even the subtle ones.
With practice and perhaps assistance, e.g. North Paw, one could learn to harness the association between light and direction anywhere, not just near huge bodies of water of known direction.
In the age of people driving through no entry roads and dirt roads because Google Maps showed them that direction, any intuitive sense of direction and navigation is definitely superhuman in my books.
With the hat or belt, the device is aligned to the body. Wrist mounting would seem to add another degree of freedom. It could work, but the tech would have to be a lot higher.
I'd love to see a smaller version too! The GPS-tracking-bracelet aesthetic isn't really for me, but I'm still intrigued by the idea.
The key components are a compass and motors, and since 2009 those have been dramatically miniaturized, thanks to the smartphone industry. Combine that with flex PCB and I bet you could fit everything in the form factor of a slap bracelet.
I was thinking the same thing (as in this resembles a GPS ankle-bracelet).
It sounds like the original research used a belt, which to me sounds like a more subtle device to wear:
> The original idea for North Paw comes from research done at University of Osnabrück in Germany. In this study, rather than an anklet, the researchers used a belt. They wore the belt non-stop for six weeks, and reported successive stages of integration.
I'm curious how well oriented you felt before. I currently always feel like I can point to north no matter what, so I'm wondering if I'd benefit from this or not? I suppose those abilities get worse when I'm not in a city with an aligned grid or inside a building, like hiking on a trail where you can't see the sun. Still, I'm not sure what I'd gain from this and curious if there's a next level of awareness to attain.
Trail navigation is an overlapping skillset. You learn to recognize landmarks, topography, water flow, slopes, shadows, horizons, wind direction, and the sun/stars/moon. Maintaining an internal compass relative to a fixed location is indispensable. If you can do that you should be able to crudely reorient after moving blindfolded through switchbacks.
Not OP, but I've traveled a lot, and it takes me a few days to adapt to the new surroundings. I can't consciously point to what it is that my brain is locking on to, but I can feel 'it' click on, and then I can trust my sense of direction, like I normally do. Before 'it', I can get turned around much more easily than normal.
As best I can tell, it's just something that runs in the family. My mother (and her siblings) all felt the same way as well, as do many of my matrilineal cousins.
> As you might have guessed by the long period with no posting, Sensebridge is out of business. We’ve been out of stock on Northpaw Kits since late 2016; we do not have plans to make more kits.
On their downloads page[0] it looks like they have CAD files for the board and a BOM for the components. Probably wouldn't be too hard (or expensive) to have a few boards fabricated by PCBWay or OSHPark. I imagine the enclosure could be 3D printed, though I don't see any CAD files for that. And not sure how easy it'd be to source the other components, especially with all the component shortages these days. But I imagine it'd be possible to resurrect the project, and given that they're not in business anymore, they might be willing to share more information with anyone interested (like CAD files for the enclosure, or specifics on where they sourced the components).
The low-cost services don't seem able to directly eat Eagle-format files, so I could only price it on Eurocircuits [1] where it came out to €50+ which seems like a lot.
Strange for an open project to publish in a proprietary format.
It looks like the files are in an older, binary Eagle file format. Importing it into a newer version of Eagle and saving it in an XML format would be the first step. After that, KiCad might be able to open the files if you prefer an open-source tool. From that you could export Gerber files for the fabrication houses.
A board of that size with just two layers should be $2 + shipping for five boards with e.g. JLCPCB. A bit more if you want to go lead-free.
- https://apps.apple.com/us/app/talk-compass/id1540530352 (has speech prompts, works while screen is locked)
- https://apps.apple.com/qa/app/talking-compass/id1476144391 (speech prompts did not work for me)
- https://apps.apple.com/de/app/blind-compass/id1546647415 (did not work while screen is locked)
Thinking about it the ankle is a pretty clever Place. My wrists are very often in different orientations to my body, but my ankles are more or less always in line with the way I'm facing.
Downside of a belt is that you have a much longer way around your body, which means longer wires, and perhaps an easier chance of breaking something. A belt also implies pants that can accept a belt, which probably wouldn't work for a lot of people, at least not every day with every type/style/color of clothing.
The anklet is reasonably unobtrusive, and unless you are wearing form-fitting pants, you can keep it under your pants leg to keep it out of sight. Even if you're wearing tighter pants, shorts, or a skirt, and you don't mind the under-house-arrest tracker vibe, it's still wearable, and might make for a fun conversation topic.
Agreed that the belt is better from the standpoint of what the device is for, but I think the anklet is a bit more practical. I know I would definitely wear it more often (more or less all the time), but I could not say the same about a belt.
It seems like it would be trivial to write an app that would vibrate the watch every once in a while, with the frequency of vibration inversely proportional to how far you were from magnetic north, but this would no doubt be a pretty big battery drain.
I don't think it is a question of how far you are from magnetic north. The north paw device helped people identify where magnetic north is relative to your current heading.
I am pretty sure by "how far from" he meant the delta of magnetic north to heading angle. Since an Apple watch doesn't have the ability to vibrate any where except the watch body it can't "point" at magnetic north like the North paw does, it would have to indicate magnetic north some other way.
Yes, this was my (clumsy) intention, 'far' in the sense of angular deviation. The thing about our analog brains is that we are very good at processing signals that vary proportionally to some quantity but not very good at internalizing 'limit switch' type signals.
Unfortunately at €2300, this isn't something that people who want to try learning absolute direction sense can purchase without much thought. I suppose the high price is due to having to pass certification as a medical device?
IIRC Oliver Sacks was interested in this kind of thing. Think there's an episode of Radiolab where he talks about how ho used to carry around a couple of extremely strong, oblong magnets in his pockets that would stay oriented north even while he moved around. He wanted to see if his brain could learn to make sense of the input and develop a new sense, akin to the magnetic navigation that retain birds have. Not sure if he ever developed the new sense but the comments here suggest that he might have been able to.
Another fun fact: evidently, one third of Earth's languages (not one third of speakers mind you) do not have words for "left" and "right" and instead use cardinal terms for everything. Speakers of such languages presumably then must know their orientation at all times.
Earth's magnetic field is way too small to orient magnets in someone's pocket. The level of friction is substantial! For example: Even the strongest rare earth magnets do not self-orient when sitting on a table. There's a reason compasses require very-low friction bearings (either needle point or water).
In Hawaii people still use "mauka" (towards the mountains) and "makai" (towards the ocean) to describe where they are, so you might say, "it's on the makai side of downtown," to describe an area or, "go mauka from the intersection" to indicate a directional vector. They also use "windward" and "leeward" to describe sides of the island sometimes, and will give you directions from local landmarks (Zippy's is a good one, everyone tends to know where those are, or they can see the orange sign easily) to other locations.
There was an article posted here not too long ago which talked about decoding an old Polynesian map, which the sailors used to navigate between islands in the pacific, and it turned out to be similarly situational - the map wasn’t useful for telling objectively how far you were from one place to another, but it was very useful for navigating from one spot to another based on references to what you could see.
I’ve mentioned it a few times around here, but James C Scott’s Seeing Like A State* has a fascinating look at the way language changed to prefer “overview”-type ways of describing location/distance/etc, as opposed to these more situational/embodied measures & directions which were previously commonplace.
> do not have words for "left" and "right" and instead use cardinal terms for everything. Speakers of such languages presumably then must know their orientation at all times.
Huh, interesting. Do you know if they actually do know their orientation at all times, or is it just that "west" is always "left" and "east" is always "right", regardless of absolute orientation?
From my own experience I would guess they know their orientation at all times.
In Guadalajara, Mexico, where I live. I've seen it first hand. People of certain age that lived near the center of the city use an absolute system for navigating the city, and to give directions on how to get to places with phrases like "up the river", "down the river", of an old river no longer existent that used to pass through the center of the city. And they always know which way goes to the center of the city, even when going outside the city center and to unknown neighborhoods. My father is one of such people.
Really basic concept but helpful for in-city navigation for someone without sight. The downside is it works by using both channels in a stereo headphone setup, which means you are dulling your audial sensitivity to the area around you.
Something like this seems to be an even better concept in terms of addressing that.
I also wonder if this could simply be added to existing smartwatches.
I thought about building something like this about 20 years ago, but decided not to.This is actually a skill you can teach yourself if you just start paying attention. It works pretty much everywhere except for in labyrinth-like buildings. The last time I couldn't figure out which Way North was was in Lord Leicester hotel in warwick 5 years ago.
You can teach yourself a lot of "sixth senses" if you try hard enough!
When I was in the Navy as an Officer of the Deck (OOD), I used to be able to visually measure distances on flat water in the range of ~500 yards to a mile within a few tens of yards because I had an internal sense of how big objects were and how they would look at those ranges. This was because I constantly had to measure ranges on radars and via moboards[0] when I was a OOD-in-training and so I learned quickly how to measure distances visually.
I also learned how to estimate how a ship was moving in ports and transit canals and how to adjust that using engines simply by looking around, much like you can adjust how you walk on a surface depending on senses from your whole body about what type of surface it is, how stable it is, etc. On gravel, most people can sense a bit of slippage as they walk from their feet, they might sense their body alignment from feet to head moving slightly due to that slippage, etc. and all those senses are used to tell "I need to slow down here" or whatever. For ships, you get an idea for what direction the bow and stern are moving, how they relate to your control angles, how that relates to what you see around you, and also integrates your body senses, because your body is a finely-tuned acceleration sensing machine.
Anyways, I wish I were still an OOD today, because I would try and create some tools like this that would help me there. Even this anklet itself would have been helpful when I was on duty, to tell me when the helmsman was asleep!
> For ships, you get an idea for what direction the bow and stern are moving
I wouldn't've thought of this, but of course that's critical to know on a ship. And it's certainly something outside of standard human experience, since we're small enough in that dimension to not have to worry about the difference in movement between our front and rear sides. The fact that you were able to gain an intuitive feel for this highlights how adaptable the human brain is.
I’m not sure if I have an intuition for which way the compass directions are due to nature or nurture. I was encouraged to think about it from an early age, but that doesn’t prove I wouldn’t have just had that kind of intuition anyway.
It’s a useful nano superpower, though. It’s quite often that I use it to pick the right direction to head without having to get out a map on my phone, or other such cheat.
As the parent comment mentions, there are times when it is tricky. I often emerge from one of several exits from an unfamiliar London Underground station and have to spend a few minutes orientating myself. Often the fastest way is to just look for one of those maps they put in glass cabinets and figure it out from the shape of the road junctions.
I have always had a very strong internal sense of direction and I've found that it relies strongly on knowing which way is north. This means that when I'm in a mall or other large building (malls are the worst) I get very lost and have to think hard about which way is which. I usually have to paint a birds eye view and know which stores are on which corner of the mall and orient myself that way. This also means that occasionally when I'm in a new city, I get north/south mixed up and am hopelessly lost
Yeah, it's condos now:( very interesting building though - built around 1650 and was expanded/modified every 50 years or so for the past 450 years. Absolute maze to navigate, especially because "perpendicular" hallways might actually be at 80 degrees or so.
During the daytime, if you know roughly what time it is and roughly where the sun is, that’s good enough to give you close enough to the cardinal directions for most purposes not involving a 10mi trek out of the woods.
Other than the part where you'd have a battery strapped to you, this could be interesting to adapt to firefighting scenarios. If you could walk up to a structure and do a calibration so that instead of telling you which way North was it was calibrated to the direction of the face of the building (the "A-side" in most firefighting vocabs) then you could use the feedback from it when inside to know which side of the building you were facing despite being visually cut off and disoriented.
I had this same idea when I was in university and built one in my embedded systems class. It was pretty cool to use when I was on my motorcycle.
In addition to a north facing mode, I also added a location mode which would always point to a specified lat/lon location. This was cool for just randomly exploring while always knowing where home is.
I wonder what else you can trigger like this to get a sense of something? Like having it buzz when you are near a taco stand, maybe that would give you a sense for finding nearby tacos over time through some latent factors that are common between taco stands? Probably a more useful case than the taco stands would be having it buzz some time before it rains. Then you can really develop that sense of feeling weather come "through your bones."
This is some serious technology. It's not trying to sell you some junk, its just pure hardware to affect a biological response. I wonder how long the effects last? How often do you need to be wearing this thing? What about your local environment, is it more difficult to maintain a sense of north in places without a uniform, cardinal direction based street grid, or some nearly constantly visible landmarks on the horizon for example? The sun alone can't be relied upon beyond just a general sense of vague north, since it changes its course throughout the year.
Great thing! If you want to revisit this project: you can get PCBs made with e.g. JLCPCB, PCBWay, OSHpark or others for a just a few dollars plus shipping now. That might help with the rats nest of cables that you had in that box.
IIRC they discontinued them in favor of the sentero, which just straps onto your arm with velcro (but it looks like they also aren't selling that at the moment).
I remember reading about how certain languages didn't have words for left & right, but used cardinal directions instead(0), and always wondered how they have an intuitive sense of where north is just to make themselves clear. It would certainly help to have it though.
(0) - ie: HokeyPokey would be a line of kids standing in a certain direction - you put your north foot in, you take your north foot out, you put your south foot in.. etc
The two main ways are based on geographical landmarks (west is towards the ocean, south is towards the desert, north is downriver, etc.) and the other is based on the sun/moon. East is the direction the sun/moon rises and west is the direction the sun/moon sets. One of the fascinating things I learned about antiquity is they would often orient their maps so east (the direction of the rising sun) was at the top of the map. They didn’t have magnetic compasses so there wasn’t anything special about north to cause them to orient their maps in that direction.
This seems like it would be distracting when near any ferrous material? If you walk around the inside of a building with a magnetic compass, you would be surprised how often the needle deviates from North.
This is one of those things that I would love to have while at the same time know most people I know would be befuddled as to why I'd want such a thing.
Can someone help me understand what it means to develop the sixth sense for north? Does it mean:
a) The user must be wearing the anklet at all times to initially calibrate but their body is able to determine how much rotation / transposition they have undergone in order to point north.
b) After training, one could tell which way is north without ever having to put on the anklet again
But once users spend a lot of time in an area wearing the device, they have a better ability to navigate that area even with the device removed. I imagine it's similar to how you would be able to navigate your home in low light
It's probably B. I have a fairly intuitive sense for north even without ever using this, although it does get confused sometimes. I've learned not to trust it coming out of the subway into tall buildings with narrow streets because more often than not I'll start heading a completely different direction than the way I wanted to go. I can see how this would help develop that sense, and I wonder if I'd have more success if I tried it
Do these ever get confused by the things that ordinarily screw up compasses? (eg. iron deposits, power lines, metal walls, etc)
Firefighters navigating in smoke-filled buildings could benefit from something that helps them maintain an absolute sense of direction, but guessing that might be too hostile an environment.
Would you actually need to have the vibrating motors correspond to north to make it work? I assume that your mind would eventually map things even if it was motors vibrating at different fingertips or something else that didn't easily correspond to compass directions, as long as it was consistent.
That is a fascinating project. We were just having a discussion about this last week, how some people seem to know intuitively what direction is which, and then there's me, where I have no freaking idea what direction I'm facing unless I have a watch and can see the sun lol.
In a sport of orienteering (quite popular in Scandinavia and Switzerland) having perfect sense of the North as opposed to checking it with compass would offer a competitive advantage.
Direction is the easy part. Good runners will have the planed route memorized by the time they start, they have 60 seconds to do this. The competetive advantage in orienteering is stamina.
I remember when the Apple Watch was first released, this is how I thought directions were going to be implemented. I was so disappointed when it turned out this wasn't the case.
This is a pretty old product and idk if they are still being sold, despite that page. I wonder if the thread title should include a date, and what it should be. It would be at least 5 years back.
I've mostly stopped wearing it though, because it looks a lot like a GPS-based parole-monitoring device, and I got tired of questions/comments :)