A man and his talking house
Tom Coates has outfitted his house with technology that allows him to control the lights, heat, etc. but also gives him all sorts of feedback directed to an iPhone app and a public Twitter feed. Derek Powazek interviewed Coates about his setup.
I also have a WeMo motion sensor in my sitting room that looks for movement. When it notices some movement, it posts an @-reply to me on Twitter, so I get notified wherever I am pretty much immediately. It asks me if I’m in the Sitting Room. I often find myself replying to the house. It feels rude not to.
If I’m not in the house and I get a message like this, then I can check on who is in my house by using my Dropcam. This is a little off-the-shelf product that costs about $200. I can, again, view the video feed from it on my iPhone. If it’s dark, I can turn on night vision, or (of course) I can just turn on the lights from anywhere using my WeMo set-up.
By the big plant in my Sitting Room, I have a Twine. This is a slightly odd little product from a company called Supermechanical. They were a Kickstarter project. It’s essentially a little battery-powered box with a couple of inbuilt sensors in it and a port for plugging in a few others. I use it for capturing the temperature of my house, vibration, and whether or not the plant has been watered recently. I have the temperature set up so that it tweets when the house crosses a threshold - allowing it to narrate when it gets too hot or too cold. I have the vibration sensor set up to shout at me if there’s an earthquake, but often it just gets confused when someone slams down on the sofa too hard.
Stay Connected