IBM engineer “Twitterfies” cottage
An IBM engineer/inventor has added a number of wireless sensors to various appliances and can now be alerted via Twitter if anything isn’t quite right.
Dr Stanford-Clark’s Isle of Wight cottage now has sensors installed that can monitor power and water usage, taps, lighting, even whether mouse traps have been triggered.
He suggested that the systems would help to reduce his carbon footprint and energy bills, saying that costs had already fallen by one-third in the last year.
Not only can Twitter be used as a messaging system (presumably via a private account) but the cottage can be both monitored and controlled via a mobile phone.
“These systems are also relatively inexpensive to set up — a basic set-up would cost around £150,” he said.
It’s something of a labor of love, but definitely has some very useful applications.
Would you want your house to tweet you if something went wrong?
Andy Merrett is a London-based full-time blogger writing for several Shiny Media technology blogs and various other projects. Find him on Facebook and Twitter.