Like so many shopper merchandise today, child toys appear to get progressively extra complicated with every passing yr. Even if the common toddler will most of the time be utterly engrossed by a easy cardboard field, toy firms are apparently hell-bent on producing battery powered contraptions that have to be licensed with the FCC.
As an ideal instance, now we have Fisher-Worth’s Linkimals. These pleasant creatures can function independently by singing songs and flashing their built-in RGB LEDs in response to button presses, however get just a few of them within the room collectively, and their 2.4 GHz radios kick in to create an impromptu mesh community of enjoyable.
As soon as related to one another, the digital critters synchronize their LEDs and sing in unison. Will your two yr previous concentrate lengthy sufficient to note? I do know mine actually wouldn’t. But it surely does make for a compelling business, and once you’re promoting child’s toys, that’s actually an important factor.
On the suggestion of one in every of our beloved readers, I picked up a second-hand Linkimals Musical Moose to take a better have a look at how this cuddly pal operates. Although in hindsight, I didn’t really want to; a fast browse on Amazon exhibits that regardless of their high-tech internals, these little fellows are surprisingly low-cost. In actual fact, I’m considerably embarrassed to confess that given its present retail value of just below $10 USD, I really paid extra for my used moose.
However you didn’t come right here to examine my fiscal irresponsibility, you wish to see an anthropomorphic woodland creature get dissected. So let’s pull this smug Moose aside and see what’s inside.
Toddler Engineering
Being that this it the primary gadget supposed for precise infants that we’ve taken a have a look at right here on this persevering with sequence of teardowns, it’s value noting the little particulars that include the territory. There isn’t a pointy nook on the moose, and the few seen screws have been set deeply sufficient into the plastic that even essentially the most inquisitive teenager couldn’t get them out.
It’s additionally fascinating to see that the battery compartment has been made impervious to liquids by the use of a beneficiant gasket across the door and sealant on the high the place the terminals pop by the plastic. Bear in mind, this toy isn’t supposed to go wherever close to the water. So was this an effort to maintain saliva out of the inner workings, or to verify the crusty goodness of a popped alkaline cell didn’t discover its means into junior’s mouth? When coping with customers of this age, maybe it’s somewhat little bit of each.
Sadly, it seems this development technique isn’t precisely conducive to non-destructive teardowns. Whereas the toes and head of the Musical Moose come off with no downside, the physique itself, the place all of the digital goodies reside, seems to be completely sealed. Strive as I would with all method of prying implements, I merely couldn’t get this factor to open up. Finally I needed to begin slicing away on the plastic, which ultimately uncovered the eight pegs holding the 2 halves of the physique collectively. I’m undecided in the event that they have been glued or ultrasonically welded, however the finish end result is similar: a really traumatic scene for any little ones who may wander over to the bench.
A One Two Chip Resolution
Given the extremely low value of this toy I anticipated to see at least a few black epoxy blobs on the inside, however the actuality ended up being fairly a bit extra fascinating. Outdoors of an RGB LED, a button, and a handful of passives, there are simply two elements on the Musical Moose PCB. One among them, whereas being utterly devoid of any markings, is clearly the radio. The opposite is an interesting all-in-one answer from Nuvoton particularly designed for speaking devices like this.
The Nuvoton N569S1K0 is an ARM Cortex-M0 32-bit microcontroller operating at 49 MHz with 6 kB RAM and 64 kB ROM. As a part of the corporate’s NuVoice sequence of chips, it additionally options 1 MB of inside storage for audio information. In keeping with the spec sheet, that enables the only chip to carry practically seventeen minutes value of voice clips. Not at a very top quality, thoughts you, however greater than ok for a speaking toy.
Clearly the soldered on module with the antenna lead is the radio, however aside from the title Coolwaveasia on the silkscreen, there’s nothing to determine it. Looking the title we will see it’s a product of Coolwave Communications, and looking by their web site even exhibits some very comparable trying modules, however none of them seem to have a publicly out there datasheet.
Radio Analysis
Soldered on radio modules are a common sight when taking apart cheap wireless gadgets, because it saves the designers from having to determine the RF aspect of issues. However with no datasheet, it’s troublesome to say precisely what we’re taking a look at right here. Is that this chip only a easy radio, or is it a microcontroller of its personal? In spite of everything, that’s lots of pins simply to go just a few bytes of knowledge backwards and forwards. Sadly, with out extra info to go by, that is the place the path usually finally ends up going chilly.
However not this time. After a little bit of looking I discovered an FCC entry for the Jurassic World “Raptor Attack Jeep” that appeared to make use of the identical radio module. That alone wouldn’t have been too useful, however not like the overwhelming majority of FCC database entries for business merchandise, this one really had its circuit diagrams out there. What’s extra, below “Technical Description”, it included the module’s datasheet from Coolwave Communications.
With this info in hand, we will see that communication with the radio module could be very easy. It’s not utilizing I2C, SPI, and even UART. As an alternative every pin seems to correspond to its personal channel, and transmitting on it’s as simple as grounding it out. Certainly, the Jeep’s circuit diagram exhibits that the Ahead/Backward and Left/Proper strains are related on to push buttons. The module’s documentation goes on to elucidate that the pins may be configured as enter or output, which presumably makes reception as easy as ready for the pin to go low.
Speaking to the Animals
So the place does that depart us? Nicely we’ve bought a fairly good thought of how the Nuvoton MCU talks to the radio module, and one very mangled Musical Moose. Somewhat than toss the components within the trash, I made a decision to wire in a header between the 2 chips so I might plug in a logic analyzer. With somewhat scorching glue holding it collectively, the Moose Sniffer was born.
In the intervening time I don’t have another Linkimals, so I can solely have a look at what the massacred moose is sending out. It doesn’t look like any conventional communications protocol, which given how the Jurrasic World toy used the radio module, isn’t an awesome shock. Three of the channels ship out just a few bits in a clearly repeating sample, maybe as some kind of heartbeat or discovery sign for the opposite critters to key in on. Urgent the button to make the moose sing fires just a few additional bits off on these identical channels.
4 of the channels initially see some chatter proper after energy up, however then cool down and don’t present any extra exercise. Presumably these are the obtain channels which might mild up when one other animal is within the neighborhood, however I gained’t know for positive till I get my arms on just a few extra Linkimals. Given how low-cost they’re that shouldn’t be an issue, and now that I’ve a devoted sniffer, I gained’t even should take the others aside. Which is nice, since I don’t assume my daughter would forgive me if any extra of those fellows met the identical destiny because the Musical Moose.
Excessive Tech, Low Value
I plan on exploring the communication between these toys within the close to future, and hopefully will have the ability to revisit the topic with one other article. However within the meantime, the most important takeaway from the teardown of the Linkimals Musical Moose is that you just don’t have to interrupt the financial institution to pack some legitimately spectacular know-how in your product.
Fisher-Worth is promoting this stuff for a tune, and each contains 2.4 GHz mesh networking and a strong 32-bit microcontroller with onboard audio capabilities. Certain you may get an ESP32 for 5 bucks, however it is a totally developed and marketed product with all of the bills that entails. But they’re nonetheless making a revenue at $10. Toys have historically been a pretty good indicator of what contemporary low budget hardware has looked like, and it makes you marvel what sort of know-how will likely be backed into a toddler’s plaything in one other decade. One factor’s for positive: I can’t wait to take one in every of them aside.
