personal communication implant(s)
what technological difficulties would one need to overcome to implant the components of a cellular telephone to allow people to communicate over existing technologies without needing to carry an external device? Bone conduction should allow one to hear, and finding someplace to keep a microphone that would be able to pick up one's voice seems like a minor challenge. The most obvious difficulty I see is a power source, although I wonder whether the microwave radiation I understand cell phones to use to communicate with the towers might be a problem for adjacent tissues. The other obvious question is of course how to interact with the device, to make or accept calls, for example.
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you can buy compact GSM and G3 modules, they come with everything you need. all you need to do is to connect a simcard, mic, small speaker, battery and a microcontroller sending the right AT commands to the modules.
the microcontroller would be in charge of interfacing with you. and that's pretty much why there's so much effort going on to get a simple microcontroller implanted, powered, and wired up to some neurons. the rest is all according to textbooks.
Old thread but cool idea and things have come a long way over the years.
How would the Mic work?
I would suggest using an accelerometer and gestures to interact with the micro controller. If the phone is ringing the gesture input is enabled and you can nod or shake your head to answer/reject.
Or make use of those RFID implants to interact. Each ID number could toggle a command.
You could use a microphone to listen to taps on your body like Morse code, enable the mic only when your RFID is in range.
Endless ways to control it.
Anyhow, I think having a bunch of separate components communicating with rf or whatever is an inefficient use of energy. We're getting pretty close to having a port possible if that makes any of this easier.
If we use this project as a example you could run a mic, ear bud, and power through the port and suddenly a stagnant project is feasible. It even gives you a easy way to add buttons.
Some people talked about conductive tattoos. Its cool but first thing that came to mind was sweating and shorting myself out. Too much salt to be safe. However it gave me the idea to have inked pads interact with a subdermal device. Alignment is critical but you get a transdermal port without the transdermal part. Still sweat is an issue.
I have a new idea now and going to buy parts for a prototype 2 way communication/power transfer circuit. Maybe use some chicken as a test subject then post the results
If you want to control something through the skin: some hall effect sensors (/reed switch) and a magnet implanted in your finger could work. If you can get the sensitivity right.
Phones are really great at being phones without being integrated into the body.
Phones provide visual displays, are easily changable and upgradable, and can interface with all sorts of periphery through protocols such as Bluetooth (Special mention to Bluetooth LE)
For the intents and purposes of integrating communication tech:
For speakers, I'd do bluetooth, just "docked" (As in, clipped onto) to a separate tragus piercing. This leverages existing commercially available technology, as well as allows portability, upgradability/maintainabilty, interoptability with future tech and allows you to easily clean your tech and the "implant" separately.
I think that if you wanna pull people on board with this, this is your best option for sound - All of a sudden anyone with a license to perform a tragus piercing can basically allow this implant, and you don't need it there 24/7, you can swap it out for charging.
That's my first thought -
I don't mind the idea of some of the subdermal magnets/hall sensors, but if you implemented this kind of system, I assume you'd face some problems with unintended consequences of magnetic implants (New to the scene/ just passing through, so correct me if I'm wrong and/or inform me what the comications of magnetic implants are.
RFID is actually a pretty elegant solution, and not at all particularly power innefficient.
Most RFID signalling/comps are passive - They don't expend power, they merely reflect the signal emitted by an active component in a certain way.
So how could this be useful in a low power/power applications? Basically you only need to source power from one area (Say, your index finger) And use subdermal implants, wherever's convenient/intuitive/good design to create various signals.
For example, stick Volume Up on your temple, down on your mastoid, previous and next on your occiput and cheekbone, you've got a decent.
Drive this with LE Bluetooth, an external controller (Your phone), your tragus esrbuds, and maybe implement your RFID transciever externally, in a ring or whatever for ease of power supply/controllable on/off periods, and you've got a sound system.
Other power transmission solutions include the burgeoning wireless charging tech, I'm sure, and I've noticed threads discussing this elsewhere.
I know that I'm probably in the wrong place to be saying this, and I'm not trying to drive people away from building a foundation of biotech that could be fantasticay useful in the future, but to me, transdermal ports seem like more trouble than they're worth.
I speak more as an electrical engineer than as a body mod enthusiast, though.
A headset would be nice. One thing to consider is battery life though, running bluetooth will add to the power requirements. I don't like the idea of a big battery because if something goes wrong and a part overheats the bigger the battery the longer its going to burn you for.
Implanting a speaker also has issues, the speaker needs to move so a hard case is no good. A hard case with one silicone face might work but not sure how that would hold up over time. Dental implants would be interesting with some type of piezo speaker, but not sure how it would connect to the phone. I bought some piezo units on the weekend to see what the bone conduction sounds/feels like.
The transdermal lab mouse test @Zwytechhacker did was a really nice implementation. His final design goal is a bit overkill in my opinion but that initial test is perfect, a small smooth surface that's flush with the skin. You put a few metal contact points through that piece of Plexiglas and you've got a non obtrusive way to connect to your implant.