I Got An Idea, I Need A Direction. Audio and Telemetry help.

Mr909

New Member
So, I heard about this NeuroSky chip that reads some raw EEG to determine focus level, and it got me thinking about an efficient, hands-free MP3 system.

See, I'm a geek and I'm big into over-the-ear headphones. I don't care how clunky they are, they don't violate my earholes and they give good sound quality no matter how cheap they are, for the most part.

So I had this idea- If I could put a NeuroSky chip to read attention levels, an Arduino Nano, and some sort of playback device, I could build it straight into the headband. From there, it's just a matter of giving it something to play and having it play it. Whenever someone got my attention, it could automatically turn the sound down, even stop the song, so I could hear what they're saying, then chillax and the volume would go straight back up.

I'm thinking about accomplishing this by means of a wireless remote I can keep in my pocket (maybe add a "shake to skip song" feature) That would serve to store the songs via SD card or maybe USB. This would be a second Arduino, with buttons and a transceiver, probably in a painted mint tin.

So here's my actual questions:

Playback- Ouch. I've never dealt with anything like this; I'm a newbie and I may have bit off more than I can chew with this bit. How do I read/write from SD or flash drives? Playback needs to output to headphone jack, what kind of stuff am I looking at?

There's also a telemetry issue, something else I'm new to. I'm sort of new to everything.
What would you recommend for cost efficient streaming-audio and two-sided communication that could fit in a headband? Keep in mind, this is just pocket-to-head, but it needs to be seamless. Weight is probably the biggest concern, this, the Nano, and the NeuroSky chip need to fit smoothly into the headband.

EDIT: Oh, power. Power considerations. I could use some wisdom here too.
 
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Some other folks have made arduino and/or PIC based MP3 players. I am sure you can find the code and schematics on the web. Then you just modify the code to add in your sky-thingy chip

You could use a lithium polymer or lithium ion battery for power.
 
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