Thanks for your support

I would like to thank everyone of you for putting your support behind this project. While the funding goal did not get there, it is clear that there is significant interest in the creation of a development platform to enable the amazing applications the Luminance platform was designed for. I had hoped to build a fundamentally new platform, with close attention to electrical, sensing, mechanical and optical design ensuring a complete system for reactive lighting that would complement the range of existing Arduino devices. I did this as a Kickstarter project to ensure that the core ecosystem of sensing, power regulation and output/control components would enable the Luminance Platform to step up to the wide range of new challenges from day one.

Taking a step back and looking at the different ways of achieving this goal I have come to the conclusion the best option will be to create something that is an addition to or iterative improvement on an existing Arduino platform.The core features of the Luminance Platform are an extremely power conscientious micro, tight integration with sensors and seamless interfacing between low voltage micro controller and the higher voltage LED components with the longer term goals of supporting a range of interesting sensing modalities and the addition of wireless control.

Next Step

I have decided to build upon the Arduino Fio platform since it can (with some hacking) support a range of sensors and easily enables wireless interfacing. Since the Fio is tailored towards the longer term goals of Luminance, I will be focusing on adding the core Luminance functionality in the form of a shield.

The shield will include:

• Voltage regulation from LED levels (5-24V) down to microcontroller levels (3.3V)
• An ultra low power accelerometer for wakeup and sensing
• Power FET drivers to interface with higher voltage outputs and LEDs

The shield combined with a Fio will enable much of the motion reactive Luminance capabilities with a tradeoff of larger size and a fixed sensor that cannot be easily swapped for another. While it will be larger and have a rectangular form factor, a Fio combined with the Luminance Shield, will still fit well in a range of embedded and wearable projects.

Another Kickstart?

Kickstarter is an amazing resource to support the transition of a design to "the next step". I am not going to start a Kickstarter just to back the development of the Arduino shield. Kickstarter is for when the next step is big enough that is is blocking the creation of an amazing new thing. I will be working on the Luminance Shield and expect to be back here on Kickstarter when it is time to add in the components that I just cant make available without ordering by the thousands or that have prohibitive upfront cost. Things like custom built Velcro backed addressable LED strips, machined metal enclosures (water and dust proof) to ensure functioning in any type of environment and FCC certification for the wireless components of the system. I want to be able to ensure that what I am creating is "done right", applying best practices across the entire system and most importantly that it is something I am proud of. Kickstarter a perfect match to that with an all or nothing funding model and I certainly expect that when the time comes a new Kickstarter project will be created. The backers of Luminance will be the first to know when that does happen.

Thanks again for all of your support.

-naim

Yet another example of what can be done with Luminance. A wizards cloak with motion reactive spell casting. While the "Technomancer Digital Wizard Hoodie" was only an April fools, add in the Luminance development components and a (real) motion reactive wizardry can be easily created.

Here is a video showing what I have done with it and Matt's improvements on my first pass. Want to see it in person? This weekend at the Bay Area Maker Faire it will be on the center stage as part of Wearable Computing: Adaptive Tech to Blink and Bling.

Here is a video showing some simple examples of the Luminance prototypes being used to create sensor reactive poi.