CircuitMess Chatter DIY LoRa Communication Device User Guide
- June 12, 2024
- CircuitMess
Table of Contents
CircuitMess Chatter DIY LoRa Communication Device
Chatter Usage Guide
Welcome to Chatter’s usage guide! This guide will help you understand how to use Chatter and navigate through its features.
Setup
If this is your first time turning on the Chatter, you should see the hardware test pop up. This is a cool little bit of software that will allow you to go through and make sure that you’ve assembled your Chatter correctly! Follow the on-screen instructions at each stage and, if there is an issue, check your soldering! This is the first thing you’ll see when you turn on the Chatter. This particular test is here to ensure all of your buttons are soldered correctly.
Turning on Chatter
Using the switch located at the left side of Chatter, turn it on by pushing the switch up. Press all sixteen of the Chatter buttons to make sure they are working properly. If the button is working correctly, the circle representing that button should turn green. If one of the circles is not turning green, one of the buttons is not working. In that case, check the soldering joints on your buttons.
Low Battery
Chatter uses 3xAAA batteries that need to be changed if you get a “Warning! Batteries low!” pop-up message.
Navigating through Chatter’s Menu
Chatter’s menu includes Inbox, Friends, Profile, and Settings. To navigate through the menu, use the buttons on Chatter.
Settings
Settings allow you to adjust Chatter’s volume, brightness, sleep, shutdown time, and much more.
Settings Menu
- Sound – You can turn sound on and off.
- Sleep time – After what time will your screen turn off; saves energy. You can adjust the sleep time or turn this setting off. If your screen turns off, press any button, and it will turn on.
- Shutdown time – After what time will your device turn off; battery saver. If your device turns off, you can turn it on again using a switch or a reset button. Also, the device will turn on automatically if you receive a message.
- Brightness – To adjust the brightness of the screen.
- Factory reset – Use this setting to delete everything from the device.
- Hardware test – Perform this test if you suspect that any component doesn’t work as it should. In case you can’t complete the test, check your soldering joints. If you need help with making your Chatter work contact us via [email protected].
Find your way around
Setup
Welcome to Chatter’s usage guide!
Hopefully, you had fun assembling your Chatters. Are you ready to grow a bit
more? We will show you how to use Chatters in this usage guide!
Let’s turn Chatter on!
Using the switch located at the left side of Chatter, turn it on by pushing
the switch up.
Here is the photo that’ll explain to you what each button and switch means
.
First time?
- If this is your first time turning on the Chatter, you should see the hardware test pop up. This is a cool little bit of software that will allow you to go through and make sure that you’ve assembled your Chatter correctly! Follow the on-screen instructions at each stage and, if there is an issue, check your soldering!
- This is the first thing you’ll see when you turn on the Chatter. This particular test is here to ensure all of your buttons are soldered correctly.
- You should press all sixteen of the Chatter’s buttons you soldered a few moments ago. If the button is working properly, the circle representing that button should turn green. If one of the circles is not turning green, one of the buttons is not working. In that case, you should check the soldering joints on your buttons.
- After all the circles on the screen turn green, the music will start playing.
- You can see a message on the right side of the screen explaining what you have to see and hear and what to do next.
- If all the circles turned green and you heard the music playing – press any button to finish the test!
Low battery? Let’s change the batteries!
- As you probably know by now, Chatter doesn’t have a rechargeable battery, but 3xAAA batteries that’ll need to be changed if you got a “Warning! Batteries low!” pop-up message.
Let’s check the buttons
- If you used the stickers you got in the kit, you probably got an idea of what will every particular button do.
- Nevertheless, we are here to explain every step of this adventure.
- You can see four buttons in the first row, while every other row consists of three buttons. Those four buttons will be used for scrolling down the menu.
- For example, you’ll use the first one to the left to go up or left, the second one to go down or right, the third one is what enter is on your PC (for entering and confirming actions), and the fourth one is used for exiting.
- The next three rows consist of buttons used for writing messages.
- And last but not least, the final row consists of the delete button (far left), space/zero (middle one), and caps lock/memes button (far right).
- It’s really easy to use every one of them. If you want to use the first letter of the button, press only once; if you are going to use the second one, click the button twice, and if you want to use the third one-click three times.
- If you keep pressing the last button in the last row (the one with the smiley face), you’ll get access to a secret meme stash.
Navigate through Chatter’s menu
- Now that you know what each button means, we can check the menu!
- The first thing you’ll see is Inbox represented by an envelope, then the friends’ section followed by your profile and settings.
- We’ll describe them in detail in the following chapters!
Settings
- When you enter the Settings mode on your Chatter’s menu, you’ll be able to adjust the volume, brightness, sleep, shutdown time, and much more.
- This is what the settings menu looks like:
- Sound – You can turn sound on and off.
- Sleep time – After what time will your screen turn off; saves energy. You can adjust the sleep time or turn this setting off. If your screen turns off, press any button, and it will turn on.
- Shutdown time – After what time will your device turn off; battery saver. If your device turns off, you can turn it on again using a switch or a reset button. Also, the device will turn on automatically if you receive a message.
- Brightness – To adjust the brightness of the screen.
- Factory reset – Like on your phone, use this setting to delete everything from the device.
- Hardware test – Perform this test if you suspect that any component doesn’t work as it should. In case you can’t complete the test, you should check your soldering joints. If you need help with making your Chatter work contact us via [email protected].
Let’s text
Adding friends
Let’s check two very cool features that Chatter provides!Those are creating
your profile and adding friends.
Profile
- Click on this cool feature to create your profile.
- Once you enter, it should look like this (except the name and the stats!):
- As you can see, you can write your name, customize chat color and avatar photos. Here are all the options of avatar photos you can choose!
- You can change mentioned stuff by clicking on them and then changing it. After choosing the avatar and color you want, click the check button once again.
- Have you customized your profile? Great!
Let’s add some friends!
- Use the “x” button to exit the Profile app on Chatter, and you’ll find yourself back in the Menu.
- Find the Friends app, and enter it.
- Once you enter it, the screen looks like this:
- Left Chatter represents what you see if you still haven’t added any friends, and the right one shows what your screen looks like if you have already added some friends.
- Chatters will do a quick scanning and find the nearest friend!
- Before you become friends, you’ll need to add each other (just like on Facebook).
- Once you add each other, Chatters will do some pairing.
- You’ll see a “Pairing successful” pop-up message, and voila! You have a friend now!
- Prepare for all the fun texts and memes you’re about to send!
Let’s text
- Last but not least, we’ll check out what we can do in the Inbox!
- If you have a text history with your friend, you’ll see a thread immediately.
- If that’s not the case, you’ll be able to start a chat with your newly-added friend. Once you start chatting, it looks like this:
- As you can see, there is a filled and unfilled circle next to the message. The filled one means the text was delivered, and the unfilled one means that the text was not delivered.
- If the text was not delivered, it’s probably because the other Chatter is too far away or turned off.
- However, you can fix that by clicking on the undelivered message and choosing the “Resend message” option!
- As you can see in the photo, there is also an option for deleting the text.
- We resent our undelivered message, and now our chat looks like this:
- Click on it (but make sure to hold the button pressed for a few seconds).
- Now you should see a secret meme stash in front of you.
- Enjoy using them!
You should be all set now!
- If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact us at [email protected], and we’ll make sure to help out as soon as possible.
- Now that you know how to use your Chatters, the next step is to program some custom functions.
- You can find the coding guide here.
