Robert Xiao, Gierad Laput, Yang Zhang and Chris Harrison have used a Teensy to prototype Deus EM Machina: on-touch contextual functionality for smart IoT appliances.

In a world of increasingly app-controlled devices (I need three different apps just to turn my lights off at night, for example!), what was once a convenience soon becomes overbearing. The Deus EM Machina system augments a regular smartphone with a large copper antenna and a custom PCB, which amplifies electromagnetic (EM) emissions from electronic devices, allowing a custom background service on the phone to identify them and launch the appropriate app. In their study, they demonstrated identification of appliances with 98.8% accuracy. Learn more on Chris’s web site, in the original paper, or in the video below.