Smart Wood Axe

As a second prototype in the area of ‘handheld tools’ a smart wood axe was created. This prototype demonstrates the potential for adding smartness and electrochromic displays to even the most basic of human tools. The Smart Wood Axe incorporates a microcontroller with integrated Bluetooth (ESP32 based) and an accelerometer sensor. All the electronics, together with a small LiPo battery, are integrated into the hollow shaft of the axe (Figure 6). The potential for displaying various parameters such as total number of chops, chop rate and impact level were explored in the prototyping phase (Figure 5). In addition, the possibility to display information on the hardness of the wood being chopped, based on the axe impact parameters, is one possible application case.