My biohacking implants (July 2020) with referrals and links

biohacker hands

Throughout this blog, I've discussed my experience as a biohacker. I got the above x-ray done in July 2020. The following post will explain what's in my hands, my next implants, and what my experience has been like with them.

What's Inside

Nov 2016 Orange: (2) N52 sensing magnets by Steve Haworth Modified ~

Aug 2018 Purple: DangerousThings xEM RFID *

Aug 2018 Green: DangerousThings  xNT NFC * 

June 2019 Blue: VivoKey Spark 2 implant * 

June 2019 Red: (2) DangerousThings xG3 magnets +* 

Installed by:

+ Pirate, an adored body mod artist at Revolution Tattoo, who also installed my NorthSense

* c00per a seasoned implant installer from DEFCON, CircleCityCon, SaintCon, and more. 

~ Steve Haworth, the designer and artist

What's Next

I've backed the Sentero on Indiegogo. It's the successor to the North Sense, a previous implant I had which was not long term. Sentero senses people, magnetic north, places, and heartbeats. Sentero is not an implant, but a wearable. 

A very respected biohacker (who I'm not sure I have the permission to name) has designed glowing magnets and arrays of sensory magnets which I intend to place in the backs of my hands and top of my right wrist. You can join the biohacking community and see projects like this on the biohack.me forums.

What it's been like

Sensing magnets

The sensing magnets deserve many of their own posts. How do you briefly describe having a sense most other people do not? I'll hopefully be able to find a journal entry from about 1.5 years after they were installed to demonstrate what they were like at the time. Until then, I'll try to keep it short. 

I've lost half of my sense in the right hand. It's terrifying. I've retained most of the sense in the left hand. They are now over three years old, so this to be expected, especially as my right hand is the one that comes in the most contact with other objects. It was also the lesser-perfect install. I have identified  that there are two causes for this symptom, and I hope this means I can fix it. 

1. The magnet has lost some of its power due to use

2. Scar tissue has built up preventing the magnet to move freely in the finger

If you've never heard me speak about the experience of my magnet sense before; I had a better magnet sense than most people have experience with other sensing magnets. Early on I identified that the reason why was because my magnets could easily spin and move in my finger. Thus, the second cause of the sensory loss is a great reason why the sense went down in only one hand. 

See my other posts about how I hope to fix that. I'll check in and report how it goes. 

Non-sensing magnets and chips

All of the other implants are glass encased microchips created by DangerousThings. I have had a very easy experience with these chips - they are comfortable and I do not feel them unless I intentionally interact with them, mostly. 

The reason the purple implant in the picture is so close to the bone is because the chip migrated all the way there. I attribute this to my own body composition, as my medical implant Nexplanon migrated over 4 inches in my arm and one of the xG3 magnets migrated as well. I have not taken an official survey, but in a convenient sample of my friends, none experience migration over an inch, or any at all.

Since the xG3 magnets are on the sides of my hand, it hurt to bump the sides of my hands for about a week. After this, it went away and it does not bother me anyway. 

Basically; easy, doesn't hurt, no issues, don't regret it. Do it. 

So - that's about a brief as I can be about it. I adore talking about my experience, so please ask me questions if you have any!