Robotics guru Kevin McAleer has created a simple foundation for a pair of cyber glasses that can be hacked to do whatever you want.

3D-printed frames, with 3D-printed filament for the hinges, form the base for these smart glasses. It’s a flat design so it prints really quickly.

A soldering ring light is the first enhancement that Kevin added to the frames. A NeoPixel Ring sits in front of your eyeball like a fancy monocle while you’re soldering, and moves out of the way when you don’t need it.

Simple electronics

“Just add wires,” says Kevin. The electronics for this project are nice and simple. It comprises a Raspberry Pi Pico, SG90 servo, and the aforementioned NeoPixel Ring.

Raspberry Pi Pico is mounted directly onto one arm of the glasses with two small screws. Straightforward code turns the light off and on, adjusts the brightness of the LEDs, and also lets you play with the NeoPixel Ring colours.

Kevin’s next step is to figure out how to add a button to the glasses to initiate all that code. Here are all the STL files you’ll need if you’d like to make your own pair.

Just keep hacking

This project is in agile development, meaning in this case that Kevin won’t ever consider it finished. He is just going to keep adding new functionality to these Swiss Army Knife glasses.

Another idea on hold for a future upgrade is a small fan to blow soldering fumes away. You could also hack this build to make it voice-activated. How would you mix up these glasses to be most useful to you? Drop your ideas in the comments.

Personally, I’d like a pair that can tell you where someone bought their cool T-shirt from so I don’t have to actually interact with the wearer to find out. Like Shazam but for clothes.

Inspirational wearable tech

This was Kevin’s first foray into wearable tech. The creations of Jorvon Moss, Allie Katz, and Alex Glow inspired him to give it a try. Click their names to subscribe to their social channels, have a look at what they’ve made, and keep up with their projects.

And obviously you should subscribe to Kevin’s YouTube channel too!