joeh

Some exciting projects powered with this Wireless Sensor capability: Object Following Robot powered by AI A Face Tracking LEGO Robot Product Identification (via Bar code scanning) and Sorting A High Precision Internet Clock Web Controller RC Race Car

See this exciting demo of our Wireless Virtual Sensor technology for Spike Prime.

We have created an external board that allows another remote device to wirelessly send data to emulate a sensor attached to the Spike Prime hub: https://youtu.be/PTmfwyByj0w Check it out. The virtual sensor is fully compatible with Word Blocks. This will enable Makers to create all sort of sensors and controls to work with their Spike Prime robots. Joseph

The Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign for QikEasy Adapter has launched. Support us at: https://igg.me/at/qikeasy

We will be launching our adapter product soon (December 5). It allows you to use your EV3 devices on Spike Prime or Robot Inventor. See https://www.qikeasy.com/ for more details.

At this moment, we are only planning to support EV3 sensors. If it turns out that there is enough demand for supporting NXT sensors, we will consider adding support for them. And when we decide to do so, assuming there is no hardware compatibility issue, it should most likely be just a firmware update in order to support them.

Sorry, the details on implementation are proprietary, as disclosing such details to our users would not help them in any way, therefore I can't provide further information.

@BrickTronic See attached table for device mode mappings performed by our Adapter board.

We are in the last phase of finalizing the design of the board. Once we are ready for production, we will put it up on Indiegogo. It sounds like you are very interested in the product, you should subscribe so that you will get notified before our crowdfunding campaign goes live. To get our product at discounted price, you can join the VIP program (the link to join the program will appear after you subscribe). By joining the program, you will be able to get the product at these prices: Buying 1 unit @ US$20 each Buying 2 units @ US$19 each Buying 4 units @ US$17 each Buying 10 units @ US$16 each Cable will be extra. Unfortunately, we couldn't include it in the price, as the cost of the cable is expensive. We will sell the cable at price similar to or lower than what you saw on the AliExpress page. Comparing the cost of the the motor with the cost of the adapter isn't an apple-to-apple comparison. With the motor, you only get one motor. With adapter, you enable multiple types of EV3 devices that you already have (even though each adapter can only power one EV3 device at a time). The emulated device IDs will be exactly the same IDs as the equivalent Spike Prime devices. Regarding details of translation/emulation, that's going to take me a bit of time to prepare the table. I will try to give you something later. How Access EV3-Sensor Modes not "translated" ? For the EV3 modes that are not translated, you won't be able to access them. However, we believe we have translated pretty much all the practically useful modes. So, I don't see that being a problem. If you see that being a problem, I would like to know. What is delivered when accessing PoweredUp-Sensor Modes not used for translation ? ... you would get 0's or some other meaningless values.

I agree with others who commented about Spike Prime and RI. Why LEGO made them different? The Spike Prime hub/sensors/motors are indeed the same hardware as the Robot Inventor ones. They only purposely altered the plastic shells and the firmwares a bit to make them different, and they made the App different. They should have made them like EV3. Both the educational and the retail kits have all parts from the same family of EV3 components.

One major issue with the Mindsensor board is that the old sensors only work with Python and not the scratch based word blocks. Also, because of voltage difference (EV3 runs on 5V, and Spike Prime runs on 3.3V), there is a good chance that you will run into power related issues. Below is a new board that my friend and I worked on that actually do protocol level translation so that the EV3 sensors will be recognized as Spike Prime sensors. This allows you to program your EV3 sensor in Word Block. The board is powered by an ESP8266 MCU. As such, even EV3 motors work with this board. https://www.qikeasy.com/

Glad that it is helping.

Great Review! The book will certainly keep me busy for a while.

Yes, it's readily available in Asia region too. The shortage is probably because of pandemic thus shipment delay.

Is this software of any use for hub to hub communication? https://github.com/NStrijbosch/hub2hub

Here's some information on how EV3/NXT's encoders work: https://www.instructables.com/How-to-use-LEGO-NXT-sensors-and-motors-with-a-non-/?fbclid=IwAR18b73sMFUUppPeNAk4ZgSjChHNpp_9BNi_QKKRPDZono7LyHlPlmFk6GY Look at the paragraphs under "Step 3: The Motor". The EV3 hub has to listen to the inputs from the encoders to interpret the rotation angle changes. For the SPIKE motors, they communicate through UART instead. For EV3: Their official sensors all use UART protocol The motors directly outputs the encoder signals (two of them) for EV3 Hub to interpret. Some 3rd party components use i2c. As far as I know, the lego official ones don't.

@Lok24 I meant that because the EV3 motors (running on EV3 hub) can be controlled to turn by specified angle relative to the original position, it should theoretically be possible to make the same functionality work with Spike Prime, using some extra hardware (a microcontroller) for signal translations. And of course, such adaptor would only make sense if it can be made cheap. You said "not for me", do you mind to give some insight to why you would not use EV3 motors with your Spike Prime projects?

Yes, I totally understand the challenge with absolute angular positioning. If the motor is without the absolute angular position functionality, would such an adaptor still be of value? I meant not all use cases require this functionality. A motor is still a very useful building block in any robotic project. Instead of letting them sit them collecting dust, do you think you would use your old EV3 motors in a Spike Prime project if such adaptor exists?

Anyone knows if it is possible to use old EV3 motors and sensors with the Spike Prime hub? Are there adaptors I can buy to do this? I suspect many people have old EV3 sets lying around collecting dust. It would be useful if one can make good use of these old components.