D20 – About Things | A Hans Scharler Blog https://nothans.com Life, Comedy, Games, Tech, Marketing, and Community Sat, 29 Jul 2023 16:15:24 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://i0.wp.com/nothans.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/cropped-settings.png?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 D20 – About Things | A Hans Scharler Blog https://nothans.com 32 32 114568856 Unboxing the Pixels Dice DevKit D20 https://nothans.com/unboxing-the-pixels-dice-devkit-d20 https://nothans.com/unboxing-the-pixels-dice-devkit-d20#respond Sat, 29 Jul 2023 16:11:17 +0000 https://nothans.com/?p=3956 I like IoT. I like lights. I like games. I love lamp. What if I told you that everything I liked was embodied in one product? A couple of years ago, I saw a Kickstarter project that lit up all three of my interests. I immediately backed it. I also backed the DevKit level which gave some backers early access to the first run. It’s here!

Pixels Dice are Bluetooth-enabled dice that can be used with virtual tabletops and toolsets. They are rechargeable and can be customized to light up when and how you want.

The Unboxing

I got a little excited when I saw the shipment notice from Pixels. I appreciated the note and bonus stickers.

Pixels all boxed up
Pixels opened up
Pixels DevKit D20 with notecard and bonus stickers
The Pixels D20 itself with a certificate

Taking a Closer Look at the Pixels D20

The Pixels D20 has a folded up circuit board inside a resin shell that has icosahedron featured in role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons. There are LEDs for each side, a battery, a charging coil, and a Bluetooth radio all stuffed inside.

Pixels D20 Charging Coil

When you roll the Pixels D20 and it settles to one side faced up, the dice transmits a Bluetooth message. If you have something listening to that message, that something can react to the message. Fortunately, the team created a mobile app that can interact with the dice. You pair Pixels just like you pair a set of headphones.

The app also lets you send “Profiles” that run on the Pixels dice. Out of the box, it came with “Rainbow” running. This was a cool effect that lights up a different color for every face.

Pixels Dice Profiles

You can also program your own profiles. Kind of like “when” and “then” logic. I created a profile for when the up face is 20, it then plays a rainbow effect over all faces, but only on a 20. I want that TPK to be glorious when it happens in my campaign.

Pixels Dice Custom Profiles

Here’s me trying to roll a 20 to test out my new profile running on my Pixels D20.

Pixels Dice DevKit D20 – How long will it take to roll a 20?

Pixels Community

In order to pull off an ambitious project like Pixels, you have to have a strong community. This team started with the Kickstarter project and stayed in constant contact as the project unfolded. They hit some challenges, but the stayed transparent and authentic which helped keep all of us engaged. Now, the team is publishing code on GitHub with an open source license and engaging early adopters, gamers, and developers on their Discord server.

I am excited to be a part of this community and see where all of this goes. I am building some custom integrations with ThingSpeak and CheerLights, but you probably already guessed that.

Roll on!

]]> https://nothans.com/unboxing-the-pixels-dice-devkit-d20/feed 0 3956