"When it comes to tile, I believe not everyone will understand. If you are a better English student, you may think of some English definitions of tiles, ceramic tiles, and even mahjong cards. However, today's tile does not refer to these, but an intelligent Bluetooth object search and loss prevention device based on low-power blue tooth 4.0 technology.
I'm sure you won't be unfamiliar when it comes to Bluetooth lost finder. Just in the past 2014, when intelligent hardware devices exploded, Bluetooth lost finder is one of the more eye-catching products. If you search the Internet, various brands and types are everywhere, such as Dokoo, nut, yisibo, etc., as well as pally evaluated by Aiban. The selling price of these products is about 100RMB, and their main function is to find things, alarm, etc. How to say, this is useful for friends who often lose things in life.
Well, to get back to business, today we'll see what's different about tile. Can it be a great success on kickstart?
Tile appearance
Tile is a product (US $19.5 / piece) on kickstart, a foreign crowdfunding website. The price is really not cheap. What we have in hand is a kit, including a group of four tiles, as shown in the figure below
The first impression of tile is still good. It is small, exquisite and beautiful. Just because of this shape and feel, I really want to have one hung on the key. Most intelligent hardware has almost no secrets in technology, and all manufacturers are racking their brains to move the "pain point" of users. Tile can show us how important a good industrial design is.
The shape is like the original meaning of the word "tile". The corners are designed into a circular arc, and there is an English word "tile" on the front, which not only highlights the brand, but also "hides" a button under the subtitle "e", so as to ensure that the overall structure is beautiful without hindering the function. In addition, a round hole with a small finger diameter is designed at the corner of the tile device to tie it to the device that needs "anti loss".
In addition, it is worth mentioning that tile's sealing performance is very "precise" in industrial design. Although I haven't tried it, I believe it will be fine all day in a washbasin full of water.
If you compare the appearance of pally evaluated by tile and aiban.com (see the figure below directly), I believe there is no need to say more. This is a second kill comparison. It feels that these two products are not of the same grade. However, if you know that the price of buying pally was higher than that of tile, what would you think?
Tile is easy to use
To use tile, you first need to install the corresponding app on the mobile phone or tablet. At present, tileapp can support IOS and systems above Android 4.4 (the app interface is in English).
Taking the IOS system as an example, tile configuration is very convenient, the supporting app is also designed very carefully, and the operation steps are simple and clear. Just follow the prompts.
① Registered account
② Add device
③ Activate
During the process of adding a device, the tile interacts with the mobile device side: press the "e" button of the tile -- > confirm at the app side -- > close the tile to the mobile device -- > activate at the app side（ (next page)
After tile is activated, you can see the corresponding tile device from the app interface (as shown in the figure below, here tile is named eeboard),
App presents tiles in two ways: list and map:
The map interface directly presents the tile location on the map
In the list interface, you can select the tile icon to find
After clicking the find function, the app interface will display different displays and prompts according to the actual position of the tile, as shown in the following figure
This tip is still very interesting, with a foreigner's humor, such as (measured as approx.)
Prompt "eeboard is very close", then the actual distance is about 1 ~ 3M, and it will also prompt that you may be nearby
Prompt "eeboard is in range" 3 ~ 10m, you will be prompted to refuel and continue to search
Prompt "this is nearby" > 10 meters
In the tile app, there are also related location service settings, turn on sound, power-saving mode, community search functions, etc. I won't explain them one by one here. I mainly talk about my personal experience:
Tile is exquisite and beautiful. It can be used as an ornament wherever it is basically placed or tied, without soil and slag
For foreign goods, the app interface is exquisite, but in English, the configuration is a little stuck. I don't know if it's due to "acclimatization"
The function prompt sound is a little low, and the effect is not good in slightly noisy places
The configuration of the app is very simple. The user experience doesn't matter
Tile disassembly
In the above, we specially emphasized the outstanding industrial design of tile. Indeed, we have deep experience in disassembly. Generally, the "gentle way" can not be disassembled. The following figure is the result of violent disassembly. Obviously, it is impossible for this tile to recover.
The feeling of the disassembled tile is both reasonable and unexpected.
How to say, button batteries and low-power Bluetooth 4.0 single chip solutions can be thought of before taking apart tile. After all, tile has only such a spatial layout, especially the layout of button batteries, which is independent of PCB. This design is similar to the current design of ultra-thin smart phones, further reducing the thickness of tile's products at the time of design.
However, with this spare no effort industrial design concept, the primary problem also comes. From the perspective of users, how to replace the battery when it runs out after a long time of use?
The author tried hard to think of a good solution, or this is a model of "fish and bear's paw can't have both". Tile's "precision" in industrial design is commendable. The corresponding sealing and waterproof have been strengthened, but the shortcomings in battery replacement have also been reflected, Even if the low-power Bluetooth 4.0 scheme is adopted, it is not the reason why the battery cannot be replaced.
Take out the PCB of tile, and the whole industrial structure is more clear at a glance. We can see that there are no electronic components on the back of PCB card, but there is a strange metal sheet on the back cover of tile. Is this? Recall what functions are missing on the circuit board?
Bingo！ By the way, it's the buzzer. In the use of tile, we hear sound and music (a melody). Looking at the disassembled circuit board, I didn't find a device that can make sound (at first, I thought the inductance on the front of the PCB board was a buzzer, which was really a little old-fashioned). As a result, the truth was hidden at the bottom of the back cover.
however? It is more appropriate to call this thing piezoelectric buzzer. The selection of this structure can accommodate the industrial structure design of the whole tile. In practical experience, we can also find that the short board of this buzzer is not loud enough. Even in slightly noisy occasions, it is close at hand, Basically, it's hard to hear the sound of tile (this is probably the interpretation of the distance). Is this the pursuit of beauty and the sacrifice of experience（ (next page)
Piezoelectric buzzer is a kind of electroacoustic converter. The piezoelectric material is pasted on the metal sheet. When a voltage is applied at both ends of the piezoelectric material and the metal sheet, the buzzer will produce mechanical deformation and sound due to the piezoelectric effect. Piezoelectric buzzer has the characteristics of high sensitivity, low energy consumption, good stability, small volume, thin thickness and light weight.
Nordic nRF51822
OK, here we basically understand the internal structure of the whole tile. Next, let's review the head and focus on what kind of low-power Bluetooth scheme tile adopts. After tearing off the QR code on the SOC, we can see the true face Nordic nrf51822.
Nrf51822 is a powerful and flexible multi protocol single-chip solution based on low-power arm Cortex-M0 processor. It is very suitable for Bluetooth low-power and other 2.4GHz protocol applications. Its main features are as follows:
32-bit arm cortex M0 processor, 256Kb flash storage space, 16KB RAM
Support S110 low-power Bluetooth protocol stack. S110 requires 128KB storage space
Thread safety and runtime protection, event driven APIs
Fully compatible with Nordic's existing nrf24l series IC
3 data rates (2Mbps / 1Mbps / 250kbps)
Maximum output power + 4dbm
Low power Bluetooth reception sensitivity -92.5dbm
PPI system enables power efficiency optimization and code simplification
Support low-power Bluetooth protocol stack and 2.4G protocol stack, including Gazell
Flexible power management, automatic management of each peripheral device
31 demand definable I / OS
From the simple features, we can also see the advantages of nrf51822. It adopts arm Cortex-M0 core, which has low power consumption, wide support ecosystem and strong code portability. Moreover, it is a multi protocol solution, which can be applied not only to low-power Bluetooth, but also to other 2.4GHz protocol applications, For example, the wireless controller chip of flying chess is very popular now.
In addition, nrf51822 SOC also integrates programmable peripheral interconnect (PPI) system, which enables peripheral devices, such as RF transceiver, timer and I / O, to interact independently without processor, greatly reducing the power consumption caused by frequently waking up the processor.
Nrf51822 also has a function that engineers focus on. It can be said that it is GPIO with 31 customizable configuration functions, which saves layout engineers a lot of complex wiring and can completely define interfaces according to PCB requirements, greatly increasing the flexibility of design, especially for applications requiring relatively small PCB size such as tile. Of course, nrf51822 has more advantages than this. For more information, please refer to the official datasheet.
The following table is a comparison between nrf51822 and the scheme (Ti cc2451) adopted by pally, the Bluetooth lost finder previously evaluated by Aiban (the data is for reference only).
In a simple comparison, we can find that the power consumption of this Nordic n51822 SOC is by no means unmatched, which is nearly 30% ~ 40% lower than that of TI's cc2541 (a little incredible).
We see tile from inside to outside. Its essential principle is the same as that of pally. Taking the Bluetooth signal strength (RSSI) during communication as the reference and a series of filtering algorithms of the software, we set a certain measurement distance. If the distance exceeds the set distance, a loss alarm will be issued, so as to realize the two-way object search and anti loss function between the mobile phone and the anti loss machine (both people and things can be). Of course, the implementation of hardware schemes will be different. The hardware principle block diagram of tile is shown in the figure below.
How do you feel after watching the simple experience and complete disassembly of tile?
I think tile has conquered you at least from the perspective of industrial design. With its elegant and unique appearance and excellent sealing, you can put it into your wallet as an ornament or tie it to your bag and key chain. Combined with the exquisite app, it can save a lot of worry for lost friends. Of course, in addition to its commendable advantages, the product itself also has some shortcomings, such as inconvenient battery replacement and too small prompt sound (Music), which should be improved.
Through the comparison between tile and pally, we can better see the differences between foreign and domestic products. Although in essence, there is little difference in hardware schemes and principles. Nordic and Ti are excellent low-power Bluetooth SOC suppliers. The two SOC schemes will not have much difference in the actual experience of users, but the user's choice can be determined from the different appearance design, This seems to remind these product companies that even if you have excellent hardware solutions, please don't abandon the craftsman spirit of pursuing the ultimate industrial design. Although we don't admit it, we have no choice but to say that this is a world of "looking at the face", especially products“
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