1. PhilG's Avatar
    TLDR: My company designed a new product that relied heavily on the Z30 due to its great sound reproduction. I wrote a blog post about the electronics and our new product is trending in technology on Indiegogo. Enjoy.

    A quick intro: My name is Phil and I’ve been following Crackberry for a while (> 5 years). I’ve only posted a few times because I’m more of a reader than a “talker” but I’ve probably read every article and listened to a ton of podcasts (including Upstream). I have an aerospace engineering degree and a masters in mechanical engineering so it may come as no surprise that I follow technology pretty closely.

    I’ve always had a soft spot for Blackberry – especially Blackberry 10. My favorite OS hands down (although I do like my DTEK60).

    When I decided to develop a new product for the small company that I work for, it became clear to me very quickly that my Blackberry Z30 was going to play an important role. I needed a mobile phone with good sound reproduction and thankfully, my Z30 had fantastic speakers. More on the BB10 Z30 in a moment.
    So what product am I talking about? Our company has designed sleep masks for a few years and the focus was on helping people fall asleep. One day it occurred to us that the way you wake up is just as important as falling asleep in a relaxed way. We decided to design a sleep mask with an alarm clock built in and a sunrise/wakeup light feature (Like those Philips wakeup lights but a personal one that doesn’t affect your partner).

    The first prototype had buttons to set the time and alarm and a display etc…all things that our other products had. As I held my phone (a Z10 at the time) in one hand and the prototype in other, I thought, why would I put all the buttons on the device when we can write an App to choose the settings and then transfer the information into the product. We wouldn’t even need a display on the device if we did this.

    At the time we had a student (also a Crackberry fan) in our office who could write Android Apps (I hear half of you booing). Thankfully the BB10 Android runtime at the time was great (I don’t hear any booing anymore). So we wrote a simple App that could create tones or beeps that correspond to the user’s phone’s clock (set the time), alarm time (when you want to wake up) and the sunset and sunrise duration (how long the LEDs are on when you go to bed or wakeup). Enter the Z30 again –

    After testing the App on several devices we found that the Z30’s sound reproduction was so good we would use it as a reference platform to develop the sleep mask’s electronics which would be required to decode the tones and set the mask’s settings.

    I’ll save you the long story about the electronics and software…unless you’re interested – check out my more detailed post here.

    The new Blackberry:

    During the development process, I upgraded my phone. I loved BB10 but I needed a faster phone (which made my younger sister happy because she got a free Z30). I’m pleased to report that my DTEK60 also gives me very good audio reproduction from the speakers. I can use my shiny Android Blackberry to program my sleep mask just as well as I could with the Z30. I really think this goes to show that TCL put some nice quality components into this phone. For those keeping score, the DTEK60 gives me slightly better results than the Pixel XL.

    Here's a screen grab of my DTEK60 from one of our YouTube videos:

    How my trusty Blackberry device helped me design a new product-dtek60.jpg

    <link removed>

    If you watch our YouTube how-to videos you’ll see my DTEK60 feature prominently in several of them.

    Let me know if anyone has more interest in the blog post as well and I'll write some more about the technology. I'm thinking of duplicating the product on Arduino so more people can come up with some good other applications.

    Phil
    Last edited by HelloNNNewman; 02-09-17 at 01:46 PM. Reason: self promotion link removed
    02-09-17 01:16 PM
  2. z10Jobe's Avatar
    Excellent work.

    Posted via CB10
    02-09-17 02:55 PM
  3. Dunt Dunt Dunt's Avatar
    Great story... I've heard many say the Z30 sound was really great. I know that was the one thing they really got right with the PlayBook.

    Sometimes wonder if some of the QNX people had some acoustical experience from their years at Harmon....
    02-09-17 03:00 PM
  4. fschmeck's Avatar
    That's a great read. Great to see someone actually hilighting some of the advantages of a device, and using them, instead of the endless (albeit justified) complaints about lack of apps.

    Posted via CB10
    02-09-17 03:59 PM
  5. bakron1's Avatar
    Congratulations and I am also glad to see someone using a Blackberry product to create something positive, I also loved my z30 and it will always be one of my favorite devices.
    02-09-17 04:09 PM
  6. rt2567's Avatar
    Great story. Z30 is indeed one of the best BlackBerrys ever made

    Posted via CB10
    02-09-17 08:40 PM
  7. Uzi's Avatar
    Definitely worth front page cb!

    Posted via CB10
    02-09-17 08:44 PM
  8. mrfreeze's Avatar
    Great story! A true BlackBerry fan. Best of luck with your venture.
    02-09-17 08:58 PM
  9. PhilG's Avatar
    Thanks guys. I have always appreciated the community's evaluation of each BlackBerry. I thought it would be fun to give a real example of the great sound quality of the z30 (albeit a bit late). When I first got my z30 I remember a couple friends saying "oh wow, that phone sounds really good".

    Dtek60 is quite good too but just a little less volume. The reproduction is quite accurate though.

    I will be trying to get my hands on a Mercury when it comes out but my friends at BlackBerry are still on Privs...shows you times are a little more lean. When bb10 was new they had the newest device + a dev unit all the time.

    Anyone ever get one of the z10 media docks? I loved it so much I took it into the machine shop to modify it to fit my z30 Leaving the dock behind was the hardest thing about moving to the dtek.
    02-09-17 09:11 PM
  10. herbersh's Avatar
    Great story, inspiring. Always so interesting to see some of the creative 'lurkers' at CB.

    Thanks for posting.

    Posted via CB10
    02-09-17 09:21 PM
  11. mrfreeze's Avatar

    Anyone ever get one of the z10 media docks? I loved it so much I took it into the machine shop to modify it to fit my z30 Leaving the dock behind was the hardest thing about moving to the dtek.
    Brilliant idea! I may have to get my hands on another dock now to display my Z30.
    02-09-17 09:30 PM
  12. KuroKei's Avatar
    Awesome story!
    02-09-17 10:34 PM
  13. gebco's Avatar
    Thank you for sharing this. The Z30 is still my favourite phone. And you're right. The speakers and sound are awesome.
    02-10-17 10:37 PM
  14. rwcrwfrd's Avatar
    Awesome post. Also, enjoyed reading more details via the first link and then watching the YouTube how-to-video. Unfortunately, my Classic would not allow the links, but thanks to my iPhone, I was able to read and watch all without delay. Wonder if my Z30 would have allowed the links to shine through?
    Last edited by rwcrwfrd; 02-11-17 at 01:11 AM.
    02-11-17 12:49 AM
  15. gebco's Avatar
    Awesome post. Also, enjoyed reading more details via the first link and then watching the YouTube how-to-video. Unfortunately, my Classic would not allow the links, but thanks to my iPhone, I was able to read and watch all without delay. Wonder if my Z30 would have allowed the links to shine through?
    Doesn't open on my Z30.

    Posted via CB10
    02-11-17 12:43 PM
  16. PhilG's Avatar
    Wow, I am surprised the links don't open. Try these urls if you are interested in reading:

    https://www.soundoasis.com/illumy-ey...tone-decoding/

    https://www.soundoasis.com/illumy-how-to-videos/
    02-12-17 10:37 AM
  17. Superdupont 2_0's Avatar
    Great story... I've heard many say the Z30 sound was really great. I know that was the one thing they really got right with the PlayBook.

    Sometimes wonder if some of the QNX people had some acoustical experience from their years at Harmon....
    I still have some movies, work-out videos and some large music playlists on my Playbook.
    Even after four years it's still a great multimedia device that I like to carry during business trips and holidays; the robustness is just amazing.
    Dunt Dunt Dunt likes this.
    02-13-17 07:43 AM
  18. Dunt Dunt Dunt's Avatar
    I still have some movies, work-out videos and some large music playlists on my Playbook.
    Even after four years it's still a great multimedia device that I like to carry during business trips and holidays; the robustness is just amazing.
    Have yet to "hear" another tablet with sound as good as the PlayBook.
    Superdupont 2_0 and Invictus0 like this.
    02-13-17 08:07 AM
  19. rwcrwfrd's Avatar
    I still have some movies, work-out videos and some large music playlists on my Playbook.
    Even after four years it's still a great multimedia device that I like to carry during business trips and holidays; the robustness is just amazing.
    Never even thought about trying the links on my PlayBook. Totally agree with the quality build of that device. Although my iPad is more up to date with internals, next to my PlayBook, it seems cheap and the screen quality isn't as vivid.

    Posted via CB10
    02-13-17 11:34 AM
  20. Prem WatsApp's Avatar
    Thanks for sharing... :-D

    •   Mercurial greetings , hopefully coming soon to Planet Earth... :-D   •
    02-13-17 02:15 PM

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