Bloom

My role
PM and systems: architecture, bill of materials, firmware for the bracelet and the tap stations, Firebase backend, projection code.
Year
2026
Type
NFC wearable, showcase
Status
Prototype stage
Drawing of the Bloom bracelet: a band of linked segments carrying five LEDs, three of them litA drawing of the idea, not the build: the bracelet lights one LED per connection, up to five. Photographs of the prototype are still to come.

A drawing of the idea, not the build: the bracelet lights one LED per connection, up to five. Photographs of the prototype are still to come.

Status
Prototype stage. The current build is a breadboard bracelet v0, the NFC light-up prototype.
Next
The midpoint check-in is on 30 October 2026, and demo day is planned for 4 December 2026.

Bloom is a bracelet that blooms, lighting one more LED each time its wearer makes a connection, built for an immersive “magical forest” showcase. My role is PM and systems: the architecture, the bill of materials, the firmware, the backend and the projection code.

The idea

Every guest wears a reusable NFC bracelet. Each time they make a connection, it blooms: one to five of its LEDs light up.

A connection is two guests tapping bracelets together at one of 4–6 tree-stump stations along the path. Each one grows a projected garden, with a vine drawn between the two people’s flowers.

At the exit, the bracelet is traded for a 3D-printed flower whose openness matches how many people the guest met.

How it works

Two passive NFC tags cannot talk to each other, so the readers live in shared stations and the bracelets stay cheap and reusable.

As designed, each station is a XIAO ESP32-C3 with two RC522 reader pads. When two bracelets sit on its pads within about 3 seconds, it logs the connection to Firestore over Wi-Fi and writes each bracelet’s new count to its tag.

In the bracelet as designed, an NXP NT3H2111 NTAG I2C plus tag on a small PCB with an etched 13.56 MHz antenna wakes a CH32V003 microcontroller, which reads the count over I2C and lights that many of its five LEDs. A CR2032 coin cell powers it.

(Bloom)

Versions

  1. v0.2

    22 September 2026

    A bracelet that listened for a spoken introduction, using a microphone and a voice-ID app.

  2. v0.3

    30 September 2026

    The microphone is gone: the room is too loud, and per-bracelet cost matters with about 600 guests expected. Pairing moves to tapping bracelets together at NFC stations.

  3. Breadboard v0

    The current prototype: an NFC Tag 2 click (NTAG I2C) board on a XIAO ESP32-C3 that lights LEDs from a count written to the tag.

Targets

plus 10 spares
(Target)about 100reusable bracelets
over 2 hours, about 150 in the room at once
(Target)about 600guests
total budget
(Target)about $750
per bracelet
(Target)about $2.90
bracelet weight
(Target)under 25g
wrist sizes the bracelet fits
(Target)150–200mm

How it fits together

Four-layer diagram: the bracelet passes its tag to a tap station, the station logs each connection to Firestore over Wi-Fi, and the projection draws the garden from those connectionsThe system as designed in the PRD: bracelet, tap station, Firestore, projection. Readers live in the stations, so the bracelets stay cheap and reusable.BraceletNTAG I2C plus tag, CH32V003Reads its count from the tagLights that many of 5 LEDsNFC, on the station’s padsTap stationXIAO ESP32-C3, two RC522 readersPairs two bracelets within ~3 sWrites each new count to its tagWi-FiFirestoreFirebase backendLogs every connectionConnectionsProjectionThe projected gardenA flower for each guestA vine for each connection

The system as designed in the PRD: bracelet, tap station, Firestore, projection. Readers live in the stations, so the bracelets stay cheap and reusable.

Try it

A bracelet lights one LED for each connection its wearer makes, up to five. Make a few.

A bracelet lights one LED for each connection its wearer makes, up to five. Make a few.0 of 5 LEDs lit

0 of 5 LEDs lit

Facts

My role
PM and systems: architecture, bill of materials, firmware for the bracelet and the tap stations, Firebase backend, projection code
Where
Terra Labs, fall 2026; part of an immersive “magical forest” showcase
Status
Prototype stage: a breadboard bracelet v0
Bracelet, as designed
NXP NT3H2111 NTAG I2C plus tag, CH32V003 microcontroller, 5 LEDs, CR2032 coin cell
Stations, as designed
XIAO ESP32-C3 with two RC522 reader pads; connections logged to Firestore over Wi-Fi
Dates
Midpoint check-in 30 October 2026; demo day planned for 4 December 2026