How well did it work? I’ve often thought of doing this, but never had the time. In addition to north I also thought about having it point to an arbitrary location or to another person’s location. The latter could be used for hunter safety, etc.
I also did this years ago. There used to be a kit you could buy. It had a compass IC and a ring of vibration motors. The sensation always pointed north.
I wore it around my ankle non-stop for a while, only taking it off when sleeping. I did some long hikes with it, etc. I could roughly tell where's north if I consciously thought about it, but the "ever present sense of direction" never really happened as far as I can tell.
Maybe the biggest realization that came from using it was that some roads in the city were actually slightly curving while I previously considered them relatively straight (I could tell from the compass direction changing while traveling along them). It's obvious when looking at the map, but not so much when being there.
I got it all working, but the electronics were on a breadboard so I never got to the state of being able to wear it for a long time while riding my bike.
I was surprised with how it felt though. I programed it to ramp down one motor and ramp up the next as you rotated and my brain was able to interpret that is a smooth movement of the vibration sensation.
