Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Smart Air Condiditoner Device

Sensibo is a smart controller that can replace the “dumb” remote control of your window unit or central air conditioner. Just stick it to the face of an AC unit and plug the hub into your home router. Sensibo is pre-loaded with plenty of infrared command codes, so no matter which AC brand you have, the mobile or swartwatch app can translate your distant gestures into cool, comfortable air.

But Sensibo does more than replace the remote. It’s packed with sensors to track temperature and humidity, monitors whether anyone is in the room using iBeacon, checks local weather forecasts, and even collects data from your smartphone to know whether you’re driving home or coming in from a bike ride. All that information helps Sensibo keep your home at an appropriate temperature while boosting energy efficiency (reducing your appliance's carbon footprint by an average of 40 percent claims the company).

One important feature is that Sensibo doesn’t interfere with the AC’s original remote control -- in fact, it senses any commands coming from the remote and syncs the app accordingly. If you have multiple AC units, you’ll need a Sensibo pod for each one. They communicate via Zigbee with the central hub, which connects to your router with an ethernet cable. Every pod uses CR123A camera batteries for up to three years of power. A developer's API is also planned for the device so it's functionality can be combined with your other connected home products.







Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Universal Smart Home System: Talk to your home

Homey is a universal home automation hub (not to be confused with Homee) currently in crowdfunding. The softball sized device packs a slew of radios for out-of-the-box compatibility with many existing IoT products, and features speech recognition as its primary interface.

Users can talk to Homey directly, or remotely through the app, and Homey will relay commands to devices in the home. The developers are promising an AI-enhanced experience, so if you ask Homey to start playing a movie, it will reach out to smart gadgets in the room to dim the lights, close the blinds, and pause the music streaming from your iPod -- as well as turn on the TV and queue up the film from your media center.

Seven internal radios let Homey communicate with devices over many protocols, including WiFi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, Z-Wave, Near Field Communication, and more. There’s also an infrared LED to control “dumb” devices like older televisions and DVD players. And Homey can connect with your online accounts to access email and calendars, streaming music and video services, and other info. A Raspberry Pi brings it all together, running software written in Javascript.












Sensors deployment in Garden: Solar-Powered WiFi Garden Sensor

Edyn is a solar-powered smart garden monitor. It includes a soil sensor that can track light, humidity, temperature, nutrients, moisture and acidity to give personalized recommendations about what will grow best, what fertilizer to use, and when and how much to water. There’s also a water valve that hooks up to the hose connected to your sprinkler system, or drip system to automatically maintain the right moisture levels without overwatering.

Once planted amongst your plants, the soil probe designed by Yves BĂ©har's Fuseproject passes a small electrical current through the soil to measure its various properties. Data is streamed over WiFi to the Edyn cloud service (free, at least to Kickstarter backers), where it’s analyzed and compared to database of thousands of plants and their ideal growing conditions. The results are accessible through a mobile app that provides a live snapshot of your garden’s health, and if the moisture is low the water valve will turn on the sprinklers for you.

Both the valve and the probe are designed for outdoor use, which means they are resistant to water, temperature, dirt and fertilizer. Internal lithium-polymer batteries recharge themselves from solar cells, and the devices reduce their power consumption on cloudy days. In response to customer feedback, the designers decided to upgrade the battery to last 7 years before needing to be replaced.












Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Home security system: Alert door or window is opened. The Korner

The Internet of Things market is full of home sensor systems, many of which can be applied to home security by including motion detectors or two-part magnetic sensors that can tell when a door or window is opened. But none is quite as simple as Korner

Each Korner sensor tag is a small right triangle that sticks to the top corner of a door or window, flush against the frame. It’s a one-piece sensor, so there’s no need to line up a pair of magnets. And unlike motion detectors, Korner can’t be triggered by a pet or other false-alarm scenarios.

The exact combination of sensors Korner uses to tell when a door or window is opened is patent-pending, so the designers haven’t released specifics -- except to say that it’s more than a simple accelerometer. Presumably there’s also some kind of proximity detection, which would explain why the tag needs to live at the corner, right up against the frame. The designers also claim that the tags have been optimized to ignore small vibrations like a knock or light wind, but will trigger an alert for heavy vibrations like a window breaking. The tags connect over Zigbee and run for up to three years on a replaceable coin cell battery.
Up to 15 tags can be supported on a single hub, which is a small fob that plugs into an ethernet port on the home’s wifi router. In the event of a break-in, the hub emits a shrill audio alarm and pushes an alert to the homeowner’s phone. In the Korner app, an alert presents two options: one to call police; the other to notify friends, family, or neighbors that the user has added to their “security circle.”






Thursday, June 5, 2014

Wireless Sleep Sensors

There’s nothing like a good night’s sleep, and the Withings Aura promises a high-tech solution to make sure you get your Zs. It’s the latest in Withings’ line of connected health products that includes scales, activity monitors, and blood pressure cuffs.

Aura consists of two devices, connected through a smartphone app. One is a thin sensor pad that lays across your mattress at about chest height. It senses very small motions, like breathing and heart rate, and also the large motions created by tossing and turning. The other is a combination device that can replace your alarm clock and bedside lamp, and also includes a Bluetooth speaker.

At bedtime, the multicolor LED lamp shifts into a spectrum of light known to stimulate the production of melatonin, a hormone that helps regulate our sleep cycle. When it’s time to wake up, the lamp shifts again into the melatonin-suppressing spectrum. Meanwhile the speaker can produce soothing noises to gently ease you in and out of sleep.

Sensors in the bedside device record ambient light and sound levels, which it can compare with your movement, breathing, and heart rate to determine how soundly you’re sleeping throughout the night and identify disruptions or patterns. All this data, of course, is available on your phone so you can further optimize your sleep schedule.

Although Aura was unveiled this week at CES, it won’t be available until spring 2014. And as CNET noted in their coverage, this is a product that you’d probably want to try for yourself before deciding whether it really works or not. The scientific evidence that melatonin is effective for improving sleep is only so-so, according to the National Institutes of Health. But data from the motion-tracking and other sensors could provide useful insights for any sleeper.
 
 
 

Detecting the flood in citizen

The Oxford Flood Network is a citizen science project to keep tabs on flooding in local waterways. It’s an example of how the Internet of Things can enable a community to be more connected to its environment (Which is especially relevant in this area after the destructive season of flooding that has plagued much of the UK since the end of 2013).

Ben Ward, founder of UK startup Love Hz, is the brains behind the project. His company specializes in wireless sensor networks, and is leading development of the low-cost, open-source equipment and software that will monitor water levels in the Oxford floodplain.

The idea is to design sensors that are cheap and easy for citizens to build and install; the data will be published openly so anyone can use it to improve emergency alerts and gain a better understanding of the ecosystem. All of this comes on the heels of some of the worst flooding the UK has seen in years with two severe warnings still in place.

Each sensor is designed to live under a bridge or overhang above the water. An ultrasonic rangefinder sends out “pings” -- like a bat’s echolocation -- to determine the water level at five-minute intervals. The latest version runs on a small battery and includes a temperature sensor that helps account for the speed of sound varying with air temperature, which could otherwise throw off readings by several centimeters.

Saturday, May 24, 2014

Internet-connected clock: The Super clock

Superclock is a proof-of-concept for an Internet-connected clock that does more than simply tell the time. No, it’s not a real-life version of the wizard clock from Harry Potter that always knows where your loved ones are (you must be thinking of Magic Clock). Instead, Superclock always knows when your next train is coming.

The inner dial shows a normal analog clock face, with the expected three hands that move in time with, well...time. What Superclock adds is a pair of concentric dials outside the ring of numbers. Each one rotates automatically to indicate the next train on the route you’ve selected for it. Whenever the extra long minute hand catches up, the dial skips ahead to the next scheduled departure. That makes it easy to see when you need to rush out the door.

There’s also an interactive component. Say you’ll be ready to leave in half an hour. Rotate the appropriate dial forward 30 minutes, and it will automatically adjust to show you the first train leaving after that time.

Smart cooking devices: The Internet of Things application

Smart cooking devices: The Internet of Things application.
The “Kitchen of Tomorrow” is a staple of consumerist kitsch -- from Frigidaire’s eponymous 1950s vision, to The Jetsons’ “Foodarackacycle,” to the replicators on Star Trek, the promise that technology would revolutionize domestic food production is decades old.
 While today’s appliances can’t yet produce a complete meal at the touch of a button, the Internet of Things is making kitchen gadgets smarter and more autonomous. Here are a few examples that might show up in your pantry in the near future.

Thursday, May 1, 2014

Elderly Care Sensors: SafeTSense

PointRF is a real-time location services (RTLS) business intelligence solutions provider that has released a new system for long-term and acute healthcare institutions.

Called the NoWander platform the product allow facility staff members to monitor and document a patient activities over time and be alerted to possible injuries or onsets of additional health issues.

Floor pad sensors, Pressure-sensing beds and wheelchair sensors alert staff to a patient taking a fall, needing to have their position shifted, as well as track behavioral patterns that could indicate a potential problem that the staff needs to address like if a patient is getting up more at night from their typical sleeping pattern.

The company recently announced a new embedded sensor diaper product that shifts patient care from typical scheduled changes to notification-driven diaper changes based on the amount of moisture detected. With the goal of increasing resident satisfaction, improving on staff productivity as well as saving money on supplies.

Thursday, March 13, 2014

What is Internet or Web of Things

Both terms are used for each other alternatives.


IoT is characterized by the introduction of machine to machine applications with no or minimal human involvement. The IoT core concept provides ability to objects or things to exchanging data automatically through different networks such as Internet, Wireless Sensor Networks, Local Area Networks, and etc. These networks in IoT environment use sensing technologies, Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) tags, sensors, actuators, mobile phones, etc for communication and work together for achieving their objectives.
International TelecommunicationsUnion (ITU) in Tunisia in 2005 approved the concept of “IoT” in the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).From architecture point of view IoT could have three different layers & namely sensing layer, network layer and application layer and four elements such asdata collection, two modetransmission, management and feedback control. Connection of various heterogeneous equipmentswith each other will lead a path to the future of Internet. However,IoThas challenges of integration for heterogeneous networks and management. It would be great success for IoT devices, if they are being install and deploy by everyone without the need of technical configuration.