Samwise Makers' News
Saturday, August 8, 2026
Wrist Welcomes Wii Nunchuk as Ergonomic Macropad
John Dingley turned a Nintendo Wii Nunchuk into a wrist-worn USB HID macropad for video editing using the open-source ANAVI Handle — a small adapter board featuring an RP2040 microcontroller, USB-C connector, and I2C passthrough. The Nunchuk communicates via I2C, so wiring was straightforward. Dingley tweaked the CircuitPython firmware to map Nunchuk buttons and analog stick movements to keyboard shortcuts his video editor needs most. The result drapes naturally over the left wrist, leaving the right hand free for a traditional mouse. All code runs in CircuitPython; flashing updates is USB drag-and-drop, no special toolchain required. The ANAVI Handle schematics and Dingley’s key-mapping code are freely available on GitHub.
Dell XPS 13 Beats MacBook Neo on Energy Efficiency Benchmarks
Benchmarker Jeff Geerling has answered the age-old question: whose silicon squeezes the most floating-point performance from each watt? His HPL Linpack benchmark run placed Dell’s new XPS 13 — sporting Intel’s Core 5 320 processor — at 6.21 gigaflops per watt, edging out Apple’s MacBook Neo at 5.38 Gflops/W and beating the M4 Mac Studio outright. Geerling tested across a range of laptops and desktops, producing benchmark scripts and raw result files posted to GitHub. The findings challenge the received wisdom that Apple Silicon owns the efficiency crown; Intel’s latest competitive response appears to be working. Geerling stresses the results are workload-dependent and invites community reproductions.
Skip the Water Block: Direct Liquid Cooling Tested on Bare GPU and CPU Dies
[TrashBench] decided the waterblock concept was over-engineered and tried something blunter: epoxy a 3D-printed pipe fitting straight onto a bare GPU die, then pump water directly over the chip. The GPU responded well — outperforming a conventional water block in the same test rig. The CPU die told a different story; it failed the direct-contact treatment, suggesting die geometry and thermal density matter significantly when you remove the interface layer entirely. The project documents every step in detail, including the 3D-printed fitting design and the moment the CPU test went wrong. Results posted to YouTube. A vivid reminder that experimentation is how the community learns where the limits are.
Vibe Watch Taps Your Wrist When AI Agents Need Attention
GOROman built the Vibe Watch to solve a real problem: when you’re running a half-dozen AI coding agents in parallel, you need peripheral awareness without staring at a screen. The wearable is built around an M5Stack StopWatch (ESP32-S3) with a 240×240 circular touchscreen and a 6-slot indicator ring — one position per agent. Status updates arrive over Bluetooth LE HID, a built-in haptic motor taps out notifications, and a push-to-talk button pipes voice commands directly to the AI. The enclosure is 3D-printed. Firmware is built with PlatformIO and the full project, schematics, and source code are published on GitHub as GOROman/vibewatch under an MIT licence.
Source: Hackster.io · 2026-08-08
M5Stack TAB5 Becomes a Full Smart Home Dashboard with LVGL Touch UI
Ninune-wa built a wall-mounted smart home console around the M5Stack TAB5 (ESP32-P4), housed in a custom 3D-printed bracket. Its 1280×720 LVGL 9.3 touchscreen organises four tabs: Home shows clock, real-time weather, indoor CO2 from an SCD40 sensor, outdoor readings from a balcony M5Stamp C3U node, and bus departure times. A Weather tab pulls hourly forecasts and tide data from Open-Meteo. The Bus tab reads live Toei timetables via Japan’s ODPT open-data API. Tapping any sensor card opens 24-hour trend graphs. An outdoor sensor node on the balcony relays temperature, humidity, and pressure wirelessly over MQTT. Full source code and STL files are on GitHub (Ninune-wa/TAB5-WallDashboard), MIT-licensed.
Source: Hackster.io · 2026-08-08
Modulus: Open-Source CNC Pendant Written in Zig for Zero-Lag Jogging
D. Mclean built Modulus because every CNC pendant either runs blind (no DRO, no overrides) or introduces Wi-Fi lag. The solution is an M5Stack TAB5 (ESP32-P4) running a motion client written in Zig 0.16, keeping the jog loop on Core 1 completely heap-free at ~100 Hz — UI repaints on Core 0 can never delay a handwheel command. Wireless runs via the onboard ESP32-C6 using ESP-NOW, which drops stale frames rather than buffering them. A separate NanoH2 (ESP32-H2) handles Zigbee shop accessories — vacuum, blast gate, lights — on its own dedicated radio. It supports grblHAL, Grbl, FluidNC, and LinuxCNC. Enclosure STLs and full firmware are MIT-licensed on GitHub (BufferRoot/Modulus-Firmware).
Source: Hackster.io · 2026-08-08
Top Crowdfunding
Kickstarter / Indiegogo
1. AWOL Vision Aetherion — $14.7M raised — Kickstarter (live)
2. None this week — (no verified maker campaigns found)
3. None this week — (no verified maker campaigns found)
GitHub Trending
Makers & Hardware
1. GOROman/vibewatch — Wrist AI-agent controller (new today)
2. Ninune-wa/TAB5-WallDashboard — ESP32-P4 LVGL smart home dashboard (new today)
3. earlephilhower/arduino-pico — Arduino core for RP2040/RP2350
Upcoming Events
Maker Faire Bay Area — September 25–27, 2026, San Mateo CA
Hackaday Supercon — November 6–8, 2026, Pasadena CA
Maker Faire Orlando — November 7–8, 2026, Orlando FL
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Curated by JD · samwise.agency
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