Fun fact: I’m working on turning ESPectre into a Wi‑Fi Theremin (the musical instrument you play by moving your hands near an antenna).

The idea of “playing” by simply moving around a room sounds a bit ridiculous… but also kind of fun.

The key is the Moving Variance of the spatial turbulence: this value is continuous and stable, making it perfect for mapping directly to pitch/frequency, just like the original Theremin. Other features can be mapped to volume and timbre.

It’s pure signal processing, running entirely on the ESP32. Has anyone here experimented with audio synthesis or sonification using real-time signal processing?

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quinnjh 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Ive worked on some sonification projects that used signals from xbox kinect lidar, piezos, and other sensors. Co-author on paper i wrote developed a "strummable" theremin that divided physical space with invisible "strings" of various tunings. We preferred running synthesis on PC when possible and just outputting midi and OSC, as DSP on ESP32 has limits for what can be achieved in under 5-10ms. If the goal is hardware audio output, you may need to look into dedicated DSP chips and an audio shield for better DAC- but for prototyping can easily bang a square wave through any of esp32 pins

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cweagans 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I wonder if somebody could make an open hardware version of the Leap Motion with this technique (though I'm not sure how accurate/repeatable the sensing is - Leap Motion could detect with an accuracy of < 0.7mm)

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reconnecting 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I'm sure the kids will love this! Wi-Fi Theremin sounds great.

	▲	francescopace 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You hit the nail on the head! That's precisely the motivation. Having two kids myself, I've thought of turning it into a game: blindfolded hide-and-seek where the pitch of the Wi-Fi Theremin tells the seeker how close they are to the 'signal disruption' of the other person. It's essentially a real-time sonar game!