i-Buddy Programming library

The i-Buddy library is a .NET library for controlling the i-Buddy USB device from your own code. Build your own notification system to keep an eye on e-mails, website hits and server failures.

What the hell is an i-Buddy?

The i-Buddy is a small USB figure in the form of an MSN messenger contact with butterfly wings. Its head can light up in 7 different colors, its heart can light up the wings can flap and its torso can twist, all the while drawing its power from the USB port. Best of all, it is very affordable at around 20 EUR/USD. With its variety of actuators, the i-Buddy can serve as a cheap alternative to other ambient notification devices such as Nabaztag or the Ambient Orb.

Liberating your buddy

The software delivered with the i-Buddy is totally geared towards chatting with Live Messenger, where the i-Buddy will respond to emoticons that people send you. It was not intended for extensibility by the end-user. In fact, while the control program is written in .NET, it has been obfuscated (boo Union Creations!), to make sure you couldn't use your i-Buddy for actual useful purposes.

With the i-Buddy programming library, you can step in and take control of your i-Buddy, and make it do what you want, whenever you want.

Using the library

The i-Buddy is automatically recognized by Windows as a Human Interface Device, and no driver installs are necessary to use the device.

The library is provided as a .NET library, just reference it from your application, grab an instance of the AnyBuddy, and start to play!

IBuddy myBuddy = BuddyManager.Global.AnyBuddy;
myBuddy.HeadColor  = Red;
myBuddy.HeartLight = On;

The library comes with a demo application that demonstrates basic usage.

Application suggestions

Here are a bunch of ideas that you can use your i-Buddy for. I've you can think of any more, or if you've actually built something with your i-Buddy, please let me know and I'll add it to the list!

At home

• Get a real-life notification of e-mails.
• Keep an eye on download progress.
• See the weather forecast at a glance.

At work

• Immediately alert everyone in the room when a developer commit breaks your unit test suite.
• Show when someone places an order on your webshop.
• Visualize the load on your server (the head gradually changes color until the load becomes too high, then the i-Buddy starts to move and shake its wings!)
• These guys are using it to keep track of people using their website.

Download

No official releases yet, but you can always grab the current source from Subversion.

Related websites

• i-buddy.com, the official i-Buddy community page.
• I'd like to thank Jan Axelson, upon whose Generic HID code the i-Buddy library has been heavily based.
• Another i-Buddy programming library in Ruby.
• Another guy describing the protocol and an implementation in Python.
• Another one in Java.

Contact

Click here to send me an e-mail.