Last weekend I ran into two nice projects on Kickstarter. Tōd and the Sensordrone. The one thing that these sensors have in common is Bluetooth 4. Low power, long range Bluetooth that allows devices to be connected to each other. It’s a technology that could replace some NFC (Near Field Communications) applications. Note that the video’s give a clear overview of what these products can be used for.

 

1. Tōd

Tōd on Kickstarter (pronounced “toad”) is an exciting and powerful new way to connect your mobile device* to the world around and right in front of you, using our bite-sized ultra low power Bluetooth 4.0 enabled Smart Beacons.

Simply attach or place a tōd Smart Beacon, that can run for years on a single coin-cell battery onto anything, anywhere you want to extend mobile device or web functionality. Or, you can interact with Smart Beacons placed by others that you are allowed to connect with.

When a real world action occurs — like your child wandering off, arriving at the corner market or your teenager not coming home — your mobile device will respectively register an ‘out of range’, ‘in range’ or ‘scheduled’ event based on physical proximity, or lack thereof, to a Smart Beacon.

These three core proximity events trigger a digital interaction that provides you with instant and automatic feedback. Be it a notification alerting you that your child has gone out of a predetermined range, an instant up-to-the-minute offer from the deli when you walk through their door, or informing you that your teenager did not come home as scheduled.

Smart Beacons extend the functionality of your mobile device by providing offline and web-connected experiences through the tōd App and tōd Cloud.

Your devices native functionality provides basic offline interactions with your Smart Beacons when not connected to the web. When connected to the web, you can experience the full range of digital interactions and connect to Smart Beacons other than your own.

Smart Beacons are programmable, providing open development for DIY platforms and electronic projects that can include sensors and other add-on modules. Smart Beacons offer an alternative to Wi-Fi for your projects by leveraging the versatility of Bluetooth Low Energy technology and your mobile device for connectivity.

What’s in it for me?

Low-power, standards based (Bluetooth) and relatively long range allows for many different applications. I can see these devices integrate with Homeseer providing applications like:

  • seeing who’s at home
  • if your car is at home or away
  • a lot more that I can’t think of right now (as I just heard about it)

 

 

 

2. Sensordrone

Sensordrone is a sensor computer which I found on Kickstarter.

Just like a computer can run many different applications, Sensordrone can run many sensor applications. And, just like the best computers using the best processors, we put the best sensors available into Sensordrone, including our own sensors.

If you have a Sensordrone, you can run apps on your tablet or smartphone to monitor carbon monoxide and air quality, find gas leaks, measure your child’s temperature, log the weather, and much more.

For example, apps using the capacitance sensor can work as a stud finder, a proximity monitor, or a liquid level monitor. Apps using the pressure sensor can work as a barometer, an altimeter, calculate elevation differences so you can measure the height of a building, be hooked up to a pressure cuff to work as a blood pressure monitor, and more. Humidity sensing is not just for weather, it determines comfort level for infants, finds the optimum conditions for storing foods, and could even help prevent mold from growing in your home

 

 Again, what are you going to do with this? Not quite sure yet. I have to let it rest and come up with a way to use it in my home ;-)

Cheers
DJ

 

 

 

 

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