2023 · Personal project
SmartHand — Motion-Tracking Glove
Wearable BLE glove that tracks hand and finger motion in real time.
- Sole designer — hardware and firmware
- Altium Designer, STM32WBA52, C, Bluetooth LE, IMU Arrays, Flex Sensors, Haptics
- IMU sensing sites
- 6+
- real-time wireless streaming
- BLE
- charge + data
- USB-C
SmartHand is a glove-integrated wearable that streams high-resolution hand and finger motion to a phone or computer over Bluetooth LE. Per-finger IMUs and flex sensors capture gesture data precise enough for visualization, HCI experiments, and gesture-control applications.
Embedded architecture
An STM32WBA52 microcontroller with an onboard bootloader runs custom C firmware. An I2C expander fans out to IMUs on the back of the hand and each finger, delivering high-resolution orientation data alongside analog flex-sensor channels. A haptic motor driver closes the loop with tactile feedback to the wearer.
Power & connectivity
A priority power multiplexer selects between a 3.7V Li-Ion cell and 5V USB-C, with an integrated charger IC and a 3.3V buck-boost regulator powering the full sensor suite. A chip antenna handles BLE streaming to external nodes, while a USB-to-UART bridge provides a wired fallback for development and data capture.
Design goals
Compact enough to disappear into a glove, and low-power enough for all-day wear. Every subsystem — sensing, radio, haptics, charging — fits a single tightly-routed board designed in Altium.