In 2013, inside an unfinished basement in suburban Pittsburgh, members of the biohacking collective Grindhouse Wetware set out to build an electronic implant the size of a pack of cigarettes. Working with glue guns, pliers, and late-night purchases of circuit boards, jumper wires, and resistors from a local RadioShack, the group assembled a DIY sub-dermal device. Later that year, founding member Tim Cannon had the prototype surgically placed directly beneath the skin of his forearm by a body piercer, launching an early experiment in self-directed cybernetic enhancement.
Basement Hardware in Pittsburgh
According to Distillations magazine, Cannon’s forearm implant housed a tiny computer designed to read his body temperature and blood pressure. The unit transmitted this physiological data directly to a smartphone using Bluetooth technology, while drawing power through an inductive wireless charging setup. Once Cannon established that an electronic device could sit beneath human skin without causing fatal infections or toxic battery leakage, he had the prototype removed. Grindhouse Wetware documented the project with the goal of releasing open-source hardware blueprints so others could freely replicate and refine their work.
Commercializing the Sixth Sense
As underground collectives tested sub-dermal hardware, commercial ventures began packaging sensory augmentation for a broader market. The company Cyborg Nest developed the North Sense, a chest-mounted electronic compass anchored to the skin using metal surface rods. Instead of displaying a digital needle, the device vibrated whenever the wearer turned to face magnetic north. Two weeks after self-implanting the module, Cyborg Nest member Scott Cohen reported an altered spatial perception, observing that the unit gave him a heightened awareness of his physical surroundings that people around him could not experience.
Community Pushback and Cost Debates
The release of the North Sense exposed sharp philosophical fractures within the biohacking community. Online forum members heavily criticized Cyborg Nest for offering the chest-mounted unit at a retail price point of $425. Experienced DIY biohackers argued that the device relied on basic components that could be assembled for a small fraction of that cost. Furthermore, purists questioned whether a unit held in place by external piercings truly qualified as authentic biohacking, contrasting it with fully embedded hardware buried beneath skin tissue.
Fingertip Magnets and Practical Realities
Beyond chest modules and forearm packs, sub-dermal experimentation found another niche in fingertip magnetic implants. Biohackers surgically placed tiny magnets into their fingertips, allowing them to detect invisible electromagnetic fields. When moving a hand near an active microwave or computer, the embedded magnets spun and vibrated against surrounding scar tissue, giving wearers a tactile sense for live electrical wires or powered electronics.
Ultimately, early biohacking collectives proved that DIY hardware could safely interface with the human body, leaving behind open-source blueprints and unique sensory trials. Yet these experiments also highlighted a persistent dilemma: whether invasive sub-dermal modifications offer genuine practical advantages over standard consumer devices like smartphones and smartwatches, which provide navigation and biometric tracking without surgical intervention.
AI-generated editorial illustration; not a documentary photograph.
Source: Distillations magazine
Hacking Humans
SIGNAL TITANS
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