3,
Pillow Music
Pillow music comfy for your ear.
2. Materials
- 1 pair of open-air headphones
- 1 pair of ear bud headphones
- 1 soft fuzzy fabric for the pillow
- I got a pack of bead mats from an arts and crafts store
- Some tick fabric to line the inside and give your pillow some thickness
- I used bra padding fabric
- MP 3 player, found or built
- 1 small led
- Conductive Thread
- Sticky Velcro, rounds or rolls
3. Skills required
Basic Soldering
Surface Mount Led ? stitching (optional)
Basic stitching
4. Instructions
- A. Hack the right headphones. 2 pairs will merge into one.
Find a pair of flat (old school style) headphones and a pair of ear bud ones. The first step is to strip the flat headphone to the bare minimum, split both headphones into 2 parts (separated the right and left phones by cutting the wires) and then joining together one headphone from each side.
Get your headphones ready
Set the soft covers aside
You will work with the bare speaker
Break the speakers apart
Keep only the heart of the headphones
Cut the wire in 2 and split the inside
Once cut, some wires need to be burnt...
...before resoldering and...
...to access the conductive material
Join grounds together and then L & R
You might need to resolder at the source
Finished headphones are hybrids
- B. Stitch the body of the pillow
This next step is about placing the new hybrid headphones in the body of the comfy pillow. Here the pillow is made of 2 layers of 8,5 x 11 fabric (one furry for outside and one tick for lining inside) stitched together. The headphones and music players will be embedded inside and the fabric folded in two to make a comfortable finished piece.
Make a slit where your flat phone will go
Stitch the soft covers outside at the same spot
Prepare a spot for the other phone to go
Organize the wires inside
You can cover up if you want
Your piece could be done here
If you choose to stop here, stitch a small pocket inside your pillow to slide you existing music player and connect it to your new pillow-enhanced headphones. Or else, you could hack an existing player that you can embed permanently inside the pillow. Or make your own player from scratch.
- C. Insert your music player (optional step)
This step involves hacking the buttons of a simple shuffle like players. The buttons will only be extended to be accessed from outside of the pillow (as opposed to controlled with a micro-controller). You will also extend the status Led out of the device onto the surface of the pillow so you know when things are running without having to look under the hood.
Crack the player open
Find the status Led
Hack it with 2 beads
Stitch the beads to the mat...
...using conductive thread...
...to add an led on the outside
Next extend the play stop button
Add beads on both sides as well
Watch for short-circuits
Stitch your own switch where you need it
Connect the two with conductive thread
Isolate the thread so you can fold the pillow
Fold the fabric in 2 and your done
Fold again and add a clasp for xtra fun.
5. Other ideas
6. Inspiration and Credits
Ben brown for the art of hacking headphones.