

A talking multimeter - sizzle
http://www.mastrogippo.it/2014/03/a-talking-multimeter/

======
morsch
Neat software hack? Yes.

Neat hardware hack? Yes.

Use a meme image in a non-annoying way? Yes.

Help a person in need to create their own hacks? Yes.

Awesome submission.

~~~
sizzle
glad it was well received! I've been submitting more hands on, hacked-together
tech posts which resonate well with the HN community.

------
ricket
How... does this even work? How does a blind person construct an electrical
circuit? How can they see the colors to determine a resistor, or read the
capacitance on the side of a capacitor, or feel the little tiny circle that
indicates which pin of an IC is pin 1? Or even just which wire is red and
black?

I suppose this multimeter is the answer to which wire is red and black (is the
voltage positive or negative). But I wonder about those other things.

I'm honestly just curious. And I feel bad for blind folks in one more way now.

~~~
syntheticnature
It's also worth noting that not all usages of "blind", such as "legally
blind", are the same as total blindness. It's conceivable that extremely poor
vision (acquired through natural reasons or accident) could be just good
enough to allow painstaking circuit construction with a magnifier.

I suppose a breadboard could be done by feel, as well.

Also, I'll quip that I've learned through hard experience not to trust that
the red and black wires are used correctly. :-)

------
chiph
I can see a talking meter being useful for even sighted people. Often you have
to take measurements in awkward positions (like working on a car) so it'd be
useful to just hear what the reading is.

~~~
userbinator
Or even those situations where your eyes and hands are focused on making sure
the probes don't accidentally short something out and are in the right place.

I think having it talk continuously (with a short pause between each reading)
would be better than having to actuate it manually.

~~~
dlgeek
In the video, he shows a small port and says that if you jumper it, it reads
continuously.

------
tlrobinson
I'm looking forward to the Mooshimeter Bluetooth multimeter, which will have
an SDK:
[http://www.dragoninnovation.com/projects/34-mooshimeter](http://www.dragoninnovation.com/projects/34-mooshimeter)

There's also a Seeed Studio one but it uses the serial port Bluetooth profile,
so no iOS support:
[http://www.seeedstudio.com/wiki/Bluetooth_Multimeter](http://www.seeedstudio.com/wiki/Bluetooth_Multimeter)

------
yoha
About the French pronunciation of "92", there is an alternative from
Switzerland and Belgium: "nonante-deux". Basically, you can replace "soixante-
dix" and "quatrevingt-dix" by "septante" [1] and "nonante" [2]. It is not
widely used or even known in France, but it does exist.

On the other hand, there is still this "quatre-vingt" thing that made
"octante" [3] disappear. It sounds complicated even to French people but they
are used to it.

[1]
[https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/septante](https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/septante)

[2]
[https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/nonante](https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/nonante)

[3]
[https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/octante](https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/octante)

~~~
bnegreve
The fact that you can "factorize" 92 into 4 x 20 + 12, means you need less
samples, not more. Of course it also requires more and specialized logic in
your program, which is the real problem.

~~~
yoha
Unfortunately, "quatrevingt" won't sound exactly like "quatre" followed by
"vingt" (in "quatrevingt", you will make the sound for the "e" very clear
while muting it in "quatre").

Of course, you could just use more developed algorithms to connect words but
then why not just use a voice synthesizer base only on recorded syllables?

~~~
bnegreve
So you need the same number of samples whether you use 80+12 or 90+2.

------
pepon
Watch out with the yellow multimeters!!

