Internet of Things startup: electric imp | Hacker News Reader

Internet of Things startup: electric imp

electricimp.com

54 pointskellegous19 comments

This is cool. At wattvision, we've essentially built our own version of this for the energy monitoring vertical -- would be interesting to see if they expose an API for devices generally. For example, if we can control imp devices through our UI, things get interesting! Or I guess we could consider the strengths/weaknesses of adopting their platform entirely. Looks like a stellar team with great backers, and they even used energy monitoring as one of their examples.

Honestly I don't see the draw to this type of technology. It's a cool piece of hardware but it basically just allows for remote control and monitoring of electronics. Past the "that's cool" stage I don't see many people finding long-term use for such technology. The hacker in me hopes they prove me wrong, but I see this type of product continue to live serving a niche market.

For makers, its huge. The first time I put a garage door opener on the internet so I could open it with my smartphone was early 2007. At that time it required a chain of ill suited hard to program parts totaling nearly $300. Its was $90 just for a module to "get it on the internet" via RJ45 ethernet.

I did it again 3 months ago with a TP-Link 703 running openwrt. $22. Built-in wifi AND RJ45, usb port for io. (although I used the GPIO hooked up to is LED to save a few bucks). So that made it cheaper than buying a new remote at sears. Now I can see if the door is open and open and close it from anyhere. And give my friends temporary access to the door on Facebook.

Why is it important? Its the difference between "$297 of patented KCD IP, LLC technology"(1) requiring a monthly subscription to use doing almost but not quite what I wanted, and spending an weekend making it perfectly what I wanted for $22 with what I already had.

(1) http://www.craftsman.com/shc/s/dap_10155_12602_DAP_Garage+Do...

I would love to see your process for building this. I'm about to start a commute again after working from home for a while, and that damn garage door is one of my weak points :)

Make magazine has a similar project featured this month.

http://makeprojects.com/Wiki/30#Section_12_000_Mile_Universa...

Whoa, that's even cheaper than the Asus WL-520GU I used for a similar project. (OpenWRT Wifi router + USB sound dongle => streaming music around the house) Good to know!

Read Cory Doctrow's book Makers. It wraps the possibilities of this sort of thing up in a nice narrative.

The point of these is that nobody is really sure what we'll be able to do with them yet. But by lowering the barrier to entry to an affordable price, then people can tinker and come up with some great, innovative technologies.

An example that I can think of off the top of my head is imagine if every piece of food you bought could connect to your wireless network via an extremely small but durable network adaptor. You couple this with a few sensors and you've got instant shopping lists based on what is in your fridge/pantry, instant recipes, used by date tracking and who knows what else.

Download link: http://craphound.com/makers/download/

I see it as a stepping stone. The tech will eventually trickle into mainstream and become so cheap that it's throwaway. Long term ideas off the top of my head: A tyre lets you know when it needs air or replacement. A plant contains explicit information about what nutrients it needs. A coffee maker prepare coffee for you when you get home.

Longer term, when augmented reality glasses become useful it could open up some really cool opportunities. Instead of having to remember all the little mundane things, we'll be able to see them. Instead of having the world cluttered with LCDs and input devices, we'll be able to separate the object APIs from the interfaces. Not so we can fiddle with our phones to find the home automation app. It's so we'll be able to say "lights", "heat up some water for a shower", " show me who's at the door". Maybe my perspective is skewed, I grew up watching star trek. Isn't this sorta stuff a hackers dream?

We live in an exciting time. So many ideas haven't seen the light of day because tech like this hasn't hit the tipping point yet. Once it does, the physical creativity of the hackers will be unleashed. Hell, maybe we'll have hoverboards by 2015 after all.

If you want a real internet of things, may I suggest a lower power protocol like ZigBee? Mesh networks come free with the spec! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zigbee

I share your distaste for 802.11. DECT also is lower power, longer range and even offers audio if you want it.

Bottom line, however, is that there is a huge installed base of 802.11. Every phone, home, and business already has it. You either stubbornly fight the tide, or you roll with it and use it to your advantage.

Well, ideally you have a 802.15.4 bridge hooked up to your network so that your laptop can talk to your home automation network from the internet. Both Comcast[1] and Nest[2] seem to be positioning themselves as providing that sort of gateway, if we're talking about normal consumers.

[1]http://www.cepro.com/article/xfinity_reveals_pricing_rollout... [2]http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/22/nest-arm-zigbee/

Bluetooth Low Energy would be well-suited too. And more and more smartphones have radio chips that support it (iPhone 4s, Droid Razor, ..)

This looks interesting. A big downside for me is that it sounds like they route all communications through their website. I would rather run a server on my local network and keep communications between me and my imps private.

IOBridge is a similar product/platform that has been around for a while: http://iobridge.com/

Given that a simple Ethernet shield for Arduino costs upwards of 40$ (last time I checked), this sounds very interesting to me (wannabe for-fun hardware hacker).

A Wi-Fi module like the RN171 from Roving Networks which has a full TCP/IP stack embedded is less than $35.

Neat. Like a real-life + hardware version of ifttt.com

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