Part 9 Using the Gloves

Part 9: Using the Gloves

Part 8 First Power On and Full Bench Test proved a complete pair of glove electronics — both boards, all ten tactors, and the wireless link between them. This page covers what happens next: connecting the gloves to the BuzzahBuddy mobile app, confirming the pair is set up correctly, and running a session on the bench.

Important

In design. There is no v3 enclosure yet (Part 7 Enclosure and Mounting), so the gloves in front of you are boards and tactors sitting loose next to a pair of gloves, not something you can wear. Everything on this page is bench and desk use only — pairing, sync verification, adjusting settings, running a session with the electronics in hand. It does not cover wearing the gloves for unsupervised daily therapy, because that isn't possible yet. See Build Status for what's still outstanding across the wiki.

Read Disclaimers if you haven't already. This project has not been FDA approved, makes no claims of medical effectiveness, and is not a substitute for care from your doctor.

What you need

• Both gloves from Part 8 First Power On and Full Bench Test, bench-tested and passing.
• A phone or tablet to install BuzzahBuddy on.
• Bluetooth LE enabled on that device.
• Charged batteries in both boards.

Installing BuzzahBuddy and pairing a glove

BuzzahBuddy is the companion mobile app for BlueBuzzah v3. Install it from the BuzzahBuddy repository (an app-store listing may not be available yet — check the repository for current install instructions).

Power on one glove and open BuzzahBuddy. Use the app's device scan to find the glove over Bluetooth LE and connect. If the glove doesn't appear, confirm it's powered on and showing breathing blue (see the LED table in Part 8 First Power On and Full Bench Test), and that Bluetooth is enabled on your phone or tablet.

Repeat for the second glove. BuzzahBuddy manages the connection to both boards from here.

Pairing the two gloves to each other, and confirming handedness

The gloves already know how to find each other over BLE — that's the bilateral sync you verified in Part 8 First Power On and Full Bench Test. What you're confirming here in the app is something different: that the PRIMARY/SECONDARY role you set for each board back in Part 2 Flashing and Smoke Testing the Bare Board actually lines up with the hand you intended, as recorded in Part 5 Mounting Tactors in Glove Fingertips.

In BuzzahBuddy, check which connected device is reported as PRIMARY and which is SECONDARY, and compare that against the glove labels and notes you made in Part 5. For background on what these roles mean and how the app surfaces them, see the Updater wiki's Understanding Device Roles page.

This is the point in the build where a handedness mistake finally becomes visible. If PRIMARY ended up on the glove you meant to be SECONDARY (or vice versa), it hasn't caused any failure up to now — both gloves flash, wire, and bench-test identically regardless of role. It only matters once a real session is running on a specific hand.

If you find a mismatch, you do not need to rebuild or re-wire anything. Reassign the role on the affected board using the BlueBuzzah Updater — see its User Guide for the steps — to swap which glove is PRIMARY and which is SECONDARY, then reconnect in BuzzahBuddy and re-check.

Verifying bilateral sync

With both gloves powered and connected to BuzzahBuddy, confirm the same sync behavior you first saw in Part 8 First Power On and Full Bench Test:

• Both boards should settle to breathing blue once they've found each other.
• Purple, flashing on either board means that board can't find its peer glove.

If you see purple flashing:

1. Confirm both gloves are powered on.
2. Bring them closer together — you may be testing them out of BLE range of each other.
3. Power-cycle both boards.
4. Recheck in BuzzahBuddy that both are still connected to the app.

Don't start a session while either board is showing purple — bilateral sync is what keeps the timing between the two gloves' vibration patterns coordinated, and running without it defeats the point of the therapy pattern described in Introduction.

Adjusting intensity and therapy profile settings

BuzzahBuddy exposes intensity and therapy profile controls for the connected pair. Profile concepts (Regular vCR, Noisy vCR, and related settings) are documented in the Updater wiki's Therapy Profiles page — that page owns the explanation of what each setting does; this page won't restate it.

As covered in Disclaimers, nothing here is a prescription. Adjust settings within the app's exposed ranges, and talk to your doctor about what's appropriate for you before treating any of this as part of a therapy routine.

Updating firmware after the initial build

Firmware on the boards isn't fixed at build time. When updates are available, use the BlueBuzzah Updater desktop app to flash them — its User Guide covers the full update process, including how it handles the PRIMARY/SECONDARY role already set on each board. Connect the board to the Updater over USB and follow its flow; no serial console session is needed.

What's next

At this point you have a bench-verified pair of glove electronics, correctly paired to BuzzahBuddy, with roles matched to the intended hands and bilateral sync confirmed. That's as far as this build goes today.

Daily wearable use is blocked on Part 7 Enclosure and Mounting, which doesn't exist yet. Don't improvise a mounting solution — see Build Status for the current state of that gap. When an enclosure design is available, it will be documented there and in Part 7.

If something isn't behaving as described here, check Troubleshooting.

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