This is some serious technology. It's not trying to sell you some junk, its just pure hardware to affect a biological response. I wonder how long the effects last? How often do you need to be wearing this thing? What about your local environment, is it more difficult to maintain a sense of north in places without a uniform, cardinal direction based street grid, or some nearly constantly visible landmarks on the horizon for example? The sun alone can't be relied upon beyond just a general sense of vague north, since it changes its course throughout the year.
North Paw
11–20 of 142 posts
Re: North Paw
#12Cool idea. I wonder if you really need all 8 buzzers. This article has a version that just buzzes when you face north.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/06/first-hum...
Re: North Paw
#13> As you might have guessed by the long period with no posting, Sensebridge is out of business. We’ve been out of stock on Northpaw Kits since late 2016; we do not have plans to make more kits.
I wonder if any smart watch apps can reliably achieve something similar. I looked briefly for an Apple watch app that did it but no luck.
It seems like it would be trivial to write an app that would vibrate the watch every once in a while, with the frequency of vibration inversely proportional to how far you were from magnetic north, but this would no doubt be a pretty big battery drain.
Re: North Paw
#14I made a belt that did this while I was in college. Some pics: https://imgur.com/a/FNbtdEO
Re: North Paw
#15I had this same idea when I was in university and built one in my embedded systems class. It was pretty cool to use when I was on my motorcycle. In addition to a north facing mode, I also added a location mode which would always point to a specified lat/lon location. This was cool for just randomly exploring while always knowing where home is.
I wonder what else you can trigger like this to get a sense of something? Like having it buzz when you are near a taco stand, maybe that would give you a sense for finding nearby tacos over time through some latent factors that are common between taco stands? Probably a more useful case than the taco stands would be having it buzz some time before it rains. Then you can really develop that sense of feeling weather come "through your bones."
Re: North Paw
#16I thought about building something like this about 20 years ago, but decided not to.This is actually a skill you can teach yourself if you just start paying attention. It works pretty much everywhere except for in labyrinth-like buildings. The last time I couldn't figure out which Way North was was in Lord Leicester hotel in warwick 5 years ago.
Agree with this guy. Never tried Lord Leicester hotel in Warwick though, but looks like it's too late. Shut down.
Yeah, it's condos now:( very interesting building though - built around 1650 and was expanded/modified every 50 years or so for the past 450 years. Absolute maze to navigate, especially because "perpendicular" hallways might actually be at 80 degrees or so.
Re: North Paw
#17I own one of these - bought it pre-made years ago rather than assembling the kit myself. It's a ton of fun, and really does give me a more-intuitive sense of direction. After wearing it for a while around places I go to regularly, I keep that intuitive sense of direction without having to wear it. I've mostly stopped wearing it though, because it looks a lot like a GPS-based parole-monitoring device, and I got tired…
I was thinking the same thing (as in this resembles a GPS ankle-bracelet).
It sounds like the original research used a belt, which to me sounds like a more subtle device to wear:
> The original idea for North Paw comes from research done at University of Osnabrück in Germany. In this study, rather than an anklet, the researchers used a belt. They wore the belt non-stop for six weeks, and reported successive stages of integration.
Re: North Paw
#18I'm pretty sure Lepht Anonym at one point was working on an implantable version of this.
Re: North Paw
#19I own one of these - bought it pre-made years ago rather than assembling the kit myself. It's a ton of fun, and really does give me a more-intuitive sense of direction. After wearing it for a while around places I go to regularly, I keep that intuitive sense of direction without having to wear it. I've mostly stopped wearing it though, because it looks a lot like a GPS-based parole-monitoring device, and I got tired…
> Because of the plasticity of the brain, it has been shown that most wearers gain a new sense of absolute direction, giving them a superhuman ability to navigate their surroundings. So you would say that this quote isn't exaggeration?
I wouldn't call it superhuman, but it definitely improves it a lot. I think it's helped in general with my sense of direction, but it's a lot less noticeable in an unfamiliar place (if I'm not wearing it).
If I start in a familiar place, then go into somewhere unfamiliar, like a new building, my ability to keep track of cardinal directions is significantly better, which helps keep me oriented to e.g. find my way out of the building.
Re: North Paw
#20> As you might have guessed by the long period with no posting, Sensebridge is out of business. We’ve been out of stock on Northpaw Kits since late 2016; we do not have plans to make more kits.
I wonder if any smart watch apps can reliably achieve something similar. I looked briefly for an Apple watch app that did it but no luck.
Thinking about it the ankle is a pretty clever Place. My wrists are very often in different orientations to my body, but my ankles are more or less always in line with the way I'm facing.