If My Cable Fails, I Give You $1,000 - Open Sauce 2026

[00:02] unidentifiable, and unreliable. And nobody knows that better than the creators here at Open Sauce. This place is like a mecca for the ziest programming and electronics projects you could possibly imagine. From robots with

[00:16] demanding power and data requirements to devices with the strictest of operating constraints. And I bet many of these folks have run into problems with USB cables that just can't hack it. But mine can. And I'm gonna put my money where my

[00:30] mouth is. I brought this W of cash and I'm gonna give a thousand dollars to any creator I find whose USB needs cannot be met by an LTT true spec cable. But that's not going to happen, right? Just like I won't find a sponsor whose needs

[00:44] cannot be met by this segue to our sponsor, T. Most people don't realize it, but they're overpaying for their phone bill. T offers affordable plans ranging from $5 to $25 on America's largest 5G network. Make the switch

[00:57] largest 5G network. Make the switch today at to.com. backpack with any variant of our cables that a creator here might need. Second,

[01:13] I'm probably going to need a disguise in order to move freely around this place. And we didn't have to go very far. Our booth's like right there before finding Century 6. This is a really cool project, guys. If you're a Tesla driver,

[01:28] you're probably a big fan of the Sentry Mode and just general dash cam cameras that are built into your car. But what you might not be a fan of is how little footage you can store by default. This right here with their software turns a

[01:42] Raspberry Pi into a functionally unlimited dash cam recorder. So, they've told stories of people whose car was hit like 2 weeks ago when the footage would have been long gone. And then how do they get it back with one of these?

[01:55] >> Uh well the car uh the P automatically records uh basically a snapshot every your own local NAS or server wherever >> I heard that you guys have had a lot of problems with folks running into low

[02:09] voltage issues with the Pi or even data transfer issues. I have a challenge for you. If my cable doesn't work, I will give you $1,000 right now. You want to >> Sure. Yeah. Do you have any live demos that you can run right now or do we need

[02:24] >> Uh, I drove my car here from Maryland. >> Can you guys spare him for a few minutes >> All right, let's go, man. He wasn't kidding when he said his car was a little far out there. I thought I thought you can summon these things.

[02:36] able to actually see it in action. So, do you want to walk us through what the setup's like? >> Yeah. So, you would plug in a USBC cable to the actual glove box compartment. You can see it actually disconnected.

[02:49] >> That's an LTT cable. Well, you're already using an LTT cable. >> Well, you dragged me all the way out to your car to swap in an LTT cable for the Maybe you could explain why you're using an LTT back cable then.

[03:04] >> Yeah, because I kept uh having issues with it uh powering or delivering data. wouldn't I don't know what it was. The cable wouldn't like show >> it probably was voltage drop or it was just the data cable wasn't proper.

[03:21] That's freaking hilarious. All right. Well, anyway, here's the A to C. >> so that would go in the actual glove box in there. It's really small. >> I feel like I'm getting trolled, but also this is like the best product

[03:34] endorsement I could ever ask for at the same time. So, I can't even be mad. >> I kid you not. I've tried like 10 different USBC cables, USB A to C, and out of the box. >> In it goes. And now

[03:48] >> Okay. >> And the little red dot should go to I mean the X dot should go to a red. There we go. It's available. It's working. If I click on it, it should

[04:01] show all my data. >> That is so freaking cool. And so thanks to your project then you could store your entire trip over here and archive the whole thing if you want. Yes, I've stored a total from Maryland to me

[04:17] GB. >> And the craziest thing, man, is Open is that it's free. They're still working on a way to commercialize it, but right now, this is a project that you guys can go and check out, install, and all it

[04:33] >> Yes. >> And a good cable. >> You don't have to show that hard, man. >> I'm not. It's It's true. I've gone >> well, I'm glad we came out here. Let's head to the next one.

[04:46] >> My what? >> Your labs. I have Luke in here. I've got in here. Uh, but most importantly, >> what are you talking about? labs article at the show. >> Oh, okay.

[04:59] >> And funny enough, we needed one of your cables for it. I am measuring people's diffuse field head related transfer functions. I know that sounds incredibly simple, uh, but more or less what it is is we're putting probes in people's

[05:11] >> I thought you were going somewhere else with the whole probe thing for a second >> That that's actually part two. Don't worry, we brought adequate lubricant for bunch of positions around their head using machine learning to calculate what

[05:24] their ears measure like from 400 different positions. It's a readout showing what the signal is that reaches their brain from the outside world. So the idea here is that if I wanted to make a perfect EQ for my ear,

[05:36] >> You can dramatically simplify the process of measuring it. How how good enough is it? >> It's about a 1B approximation under 8 decent. >> That's great. What do you mean decent?

[05:51] it works? >> Sure. This is a standard called the Pirate. It is a microphone made by some researchers. They use it for a paper in >> And it's a little open- source mic I can put down inside your ear canal. This

[06:04] going to go in deep enough for that. And this has a 40 lb pull string in case we can pull something out with, you know, less than 40 lbs of force, >> right? >> All right. Let's see here. Now,

[06:18] >> Some pressure, you might say. >> Some pressure. You might actually feel an itching in the back of your throat. And I'm not even kidding. Okay, this guy actually a modified Bluetooth speaker

[06:30] preserve the signal integrity, but most importantly so we get the timing information right between the sound bouncing around the ground maybe to I >> Now, this part isn't quite as fun. >> You're going to have to pick a spot. You

[06:45] >> Yeah. >> Okay. You're going to need to do that. direction, and just stand completely still while I probe you. >> Yeah, sure. I'll >> Okay, great.

[07:07] ear, which I'm sure is going to feel great. Now I get to take that data, slap it through the algorithm, and we get a spit out of how you hear the world. This might be the most excited I've ever been for a labs article. This is something

[07:21] probably like, "Oh, how much is Sony worth?" trying this for a while, too. Anyway, we're actually doing it. Okay, I have all of your data in this folder, and now I can import it into my silly custom

[07:33] >> So, for context, the reason they care is that making it fast and practical and easy to get these measurements allows you to tune your headphones or your you to tune your headphones or your in-ear monitors to more accurately sound

[07:48] correct to a larger subset of the population. But right now it's extremely data. >> But wait, there's more than that. We can actually take this measurement of your ears, apply it to just the canal of our

[08:02] measurement rig labs and figure out exactly how every IM measures on your ears. This is also useful for things like hearing aid data. If there is more hearing aids could be better. Pretty much anything where your ears are

[08:14] also going to help the research that we're doing in labs. Now I just run my reconstruction here and that is how you hear the world. That's your ear and >> What can you tell me about my hearing? >> I'd say it's pretty close to population

[08:29] a bit more shoulder bounce than most people have. >> Yeah. So everything that reaches your ears, obviously things are reflecting they're reflecting off the walls. But you have these these are some pretty big

[08:44] yeah, you got some like builtup shoulders. cuz you're playing bad mitten bounce right there. >> So, basically, everyone else's benefit from your project is that overall headphones should get better

[08:59] >> and hearing aids and anything that goes into your ear holes. will be open and available for the world to use. >> That's the way to do it. >> Hi there. We're at our next port of call

[09:13] and I have a challenge for you. >> Okay. Step one is tell me about your >> So, this is a VR headset that we made with CRT screens. They came from these portable TVs. So, there's one CRT for each eye. They're black and white and

[09:26] very blurry, but it will work with pretty much any PC compatible VR game. >> Okay, that's the coolest thing ever. I think you might know this already, but called our true spec cables. >> They're all about delivering the data

[09:40] that it advertises with very low voltage drop. Is there anything about your setup high-quality USB cable? >> We have these really long USBC cables that are coming from the laptops and going to the headsets, but I found that

[09:54] the headsets, the CRTs in them will work down to around 4 volts. And USB usually like that, the voltage can drop and end up uh being below 4 volts. And I found that was a problem with certain laptops combined with these cheap cables I'm

[10:09] using. So, here's the challenge. We're going to sub in my cable. If it doesn't >> Sure. >> All right, let's try it. While I wait for a 5 meter cable, can I try it? >> Yeah. So, we have we have one headset

[10:21] them's playing Beat Saber. >> Okay, I think you know which one I'm >> Beat Saber, >> of course. Dude, it's you get a little bit of that classic CRT blur. Like obviously it's

[10:35] desirable. But in terms of like the persistence and that CRT fuzziness, that blur, it's not sharp, so you don't get the same kind of really sharp aliasing. It actually looks better than I expected. Incredible project. Now comes

[10:50] the challenge. We've got our 5 m cable. Let's see if it can run it. To be clear, VR is not an application we necessarily recommend them for for daily use. They thicker side for something like VR. However, for a troubleshooting situation

[11:08] when you just want something known good, that is a scenario where we would truth. >> It looks like it's working. unless it's working, it's not working. So, power's good. Display's good.

[11:21] >> All right. Another success. Thank you for letting us check this out. What's >> It's just for fun. >> Just totally for fun. I just wanted to can people follow your projects?

[11:34] github.com/allenbog, >> we'll have that link down below. Thank >> This is awesome. And uh that's your cable now.

[11:48] in the mask? >> I did not recognize you. I thought like, oh, that's weird. And then someone later made the connection for me. >> Got it. Okay. I heard that you're showing off 240 watt charging in some

[12:02] >> Oh, we are. Yes. >> I have a challenge for you. If my True Spec cable can't handle your 240 watt charging demo, >> I will invest another $1,000. >> That looks like a very thin set. Is that

[12:15] >> Okay. Okay. >> Do you want to count it? You want to >> This guy, he knows I'm good for it. Go ahead. Go ahead. Count it. ahead. Go ahead. Count it. >> All right. 1 2 3 4 16 17 18 I only see

[12:29] >> Yeah. Yeah. Very funny. Very funny. $3,000. >> Okay. We got the 5 m. This one only runs USB 2 speeds, but this is our longest charging cable that does 240 W. >> I'm in. So, our our 16 is the one that

[12:43] can do 240 W. >> We need to find a power outlet and we >> We need to find a power outlet and we need to find a 240 W power adapter. So, we were one of the first ones to ship 240 watts USBC PD standard charging on a

[12:56] laptop. So, we are going to use that. >> Okay. And then where will they see uh an indicator that we're getting 240 watts? >> So, my assumption was that because you're going to like do a like this as a review that you would bring the test

[13:08] equipment. So, what we're going to do is a trust me bro. >> We're going to do a trust trust me bro on this. Whoa. It's charging. Right. Look at that. That's what that

[13:22] me, bro. >> YOU HAVE NO WAY OF validating this. >> we can use framework tool to tell us what it negotiated over USB PD. Framework >> and you forgot about it.

[13:36] >> Uh, it it doesn't come with Windows, unfortunately, is the problem. But we're tool. We have to draw enough power that the laptop negotiates up to 240 W. >> Let's see. Okay, we can run we can try to run firm mark if this all is

[13:50] installed on it. It is not installed on it. Wait, what about that 16? The one that's got the keyboard. We could try that. This review is getting really long. We'll throw some extras up at lmg.gg/flatlane.

[14:05] If you guys want to see the full incredibly endearingly awkward encounter with Narov, we've got a dedicated GPU in here now because our problem was that it wouldn't negotiate the higher voltage because the system

[14:19] didn't need more power. And I assume it's more efficient in some way to run the lower voltage. So, we threw a dedicated graphics card in here, which by the way is taking like 2 minutes because framework things. And we're

[14:34] power now and negotiate a higher voltage. >> We'll do both. We'll do a CPU burner so it burns some more power and we'll run the GPU. And now moment of truth. >> It is still not drawing 240 watts for

[14:49] some reason. Okay. So, how do we crank it up to 240? All right. It is. It is slowly. Why is it charging slowly? >> Well, your battery is almost full. full. So, that's not going to give us as much power as we want. Let's have a look

[15:02] at what our CPU and GPU power draw. >> Yeah. All right. So, we're we're charging at 22 package power 50 watts on the CPU. And then, well, let's see. We can see the GPU 100 W. >> Okay. So, we have a total of 170 watts

[15:17] system is drawing something. I know what we can do. We can charge another laptop phone. >> Yeah, we can charge your phone. unfortunately. So, it's charging at like

[15:32] 20ish W. >> We're running a CPU burn test. We're running Firmark, each of which are consuming 50 and 100 W, respectively. That puts us at about 170 W. We've got the screen cranked. We've got the

[15:44] backlight cranked. We're charging my phone. So, with all of that running, would you say it's pretty safe to say we're at at least 200 W? that's a fair statement to make. >> Well, then there's no way that it didn't

[15:57] >> Correct. Yes. Then I think we're going to call this a pass even though it was a >> Yes, I agree. I'm sorry not to have that $1,000, but I did get a consolation prize, which is a 5 m LT cable.

[16:12] >> Thanks, Rav. You're always such a good sport. Now for our final port of call, is yet. Who wants to explain it to me? >> So, this is the NeoRacer. It's a product that uh us Neobotics Foundation uh incorporated sells. It's a 112 scale

[16:27] autonomous car kit that goes up to six meters per second. So what you see here pretty fast. >> So I noticed you're trying to slip this under the radar with parents with that nice low number. What does that convert

[16:42] to for kilome an hour? >> That's about 25 km an hour. >> Okay. So it's not up there with like the the fastest like 6s, you know, truckies your ankle out. That's for sure. >> Oh, definitely. Trust me. I've I've

[16:56] thing, right? And really the purpose of this car is to be a standardized model for students to and teachers to buy. Basically, to make affordable and accessible. >> Okay. Can we see it in action? Actually,

[17:11] high quality USB cable? >> So, Seed Studios is uh the manufacturer very highly respected in the technology community. So, we trust the quality assurance uh tests that they do. Well, I'll tell you what. Give me Give me a

[17:26] Oh, you want to try You want to try a new cable? >> Should we hook it up? Here's the challenge. If my cable doesn't work for your application, our true spec cable, I'll give you $1,000 right now.

[17:38] >> I will say this is a different model of a car we actually use for um a course over at MIT called Beaver Summer Institute. Um, I've personally spent a different cables and a lot of different options uh to power our sensors because

[17:53] very finicky >> and they lie. >> And they lie. Yes, there are too many Amazon cables I've uh I've tried in the past um in my career that just have not worked. We have an Intel Real Sense D435

[18:06] camera here. This is a camera that can sense uh color, depth, and has an IMU system individually. Everything gets powered off this uh universal back here. circuit. But what we found is that a lot of our peripherals go through this USB

[18:20] hub and especially this camera. >> You're limited by the total power. >> Wait, do you want such a long one? We have so many different lengths. That's m, 2 m. >> Oh, interesting.

[18:34] >> Do you potentially have a twoft cable? Well, this would be perfect. 1.6 ft. >> 1.6 ft. Okay. Okay. So, what we're probably going to do is um one of our very easy diagnostic tests, which is plugging the cable in, running our test

[18:46] >> Okay, >> we're going to wait a few moments for the robot to turn on. When the does turn on, our this LED strip will show a >> There it is. Nice. >> So, forward camera. We're going to see

[19:00] something come up from the other side, and that will tell us if uh your cable >> here we go. I got this on the line right now. >> Look at that. HEY, LET'S GO. >> OH, THIS IS AMAZING.

[19:14] >> LOOK, almost zero sync issues. >> Is that something that will happen a lot is you'll have sync issues with >> Oh, yes. Alan here like who I've worked different issues with these cameras. >> So, we've been having a lot of issues

[19:28] with the camera and its power draw. And one of the downsides of the camera's sync with everything else on the car, the camera is not going to push itself to output as many frames as possible. In the past, we specified on boot up that

[19:41] the camera would be running at 15 fps, but when we actually checked it, it was >> The way we hacked it was that we would set it to 30 or 60 and then you'd get a >> Yeah. And then we get it to run at 15. >> Do you think one factor could be just

[19:56] loss there? >> Yes. I mean like we I I spent a lot of shortest cable to use in the systems cuz you know the longer the data travels the resistance you get. >> This has actually gone better than I

[20:09] expected. I came into this video thinking like with all the weird esoteric things around here that someone was going to have an application that >> Not yet. >> The color gradient here shows you how

[20:22] far things are away from the robot. So it starts from black and then red is the color spectrum. So then it goes orange and then green. >> Yeah, absolutely. Let's um when we finish testing this wire, we'll put it

[20:35] driving. And yeah, >> I can't wait. >> Absolutely consistent. >> That's incredible. You can see it.

[20:49] >> That's amazing. That's very consistent. >> That is This is a way better outcome The other thing I was going to say is we've got like almost zero latency over system over these antennas. Yeah. And so typically with a with a bad cable or bad

[21:04] camera, like you would see a lot of lag. And here it's just instant. Like I put >> Oh, that's not normal. >> No, not for us. >> Well, why is the cable affecting the Wi-Fi? Can you talk me through the data

[21:16] >> The cable goes into the Raspberry Pi. Then the Raspberry Pi has to like figure toss it over the internet and then we see it on our computer. That's what the >> if it's getting an inconsistent feed with bad pacing or any kind of delay,

[21:29] wireless. >> Absolutely. That's why we're so lag. This phenomenon that happens with USB 3.0 ports that we've investigated a lot where it actually leaks like RF frequencies of a certain like, you know,

[21:43] frequency that jams like signals like our radio transmitter, our Wi-Fi, and our other things. So it would be very interesting to test these and see if it >> So for our high-speed conductors, we're using coax.

[21:56] >> rather than using twisted pair >> and it's more expensive and it makes the >> But for what we were trying to do, which was the no bull >> the known good cable, the source single source of truth cable,

[22:10] trade-off. >> No, it's amazing. Yeah. Most cables and so you get like bad signal, you get choppy frames, you get all the stuff this is great. >> You are like the best pitch man I could

[22:23] have possibly chosen in this whole place. And I didn't even think about up my Wi-Fi." >> Yeah. >> Yeah. So, no, it's amazing. It's great for robotics. You know, these cars um

[22:36] have a voltage indicator. That's what the LED strip is. And our car is those lights disappear, that means the entire system is dead. Um, in the past the camera on, uh, we've seen our car brown out, we've seen our car drop out,

[22:50] and, you know, bad things are happening. But look, we're running full frames, our >> All right, >> that's incredible. what else is incredible? This incredible segue to our sponsor.

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