Internet of Things at CES 2012
The “Internet of Things” was big at CES this year. From TVs, to cars, to cloud-based gardens; the Internet is getting woven into everything. It is really exciting to see it all come to head and see the “Internet of Things” vision being fulfilled by both up and coming innovative companies and large incumbents as well. As you have probably read, CES was huge, drawing in record crowds with the launch of innovative and interesting products that everyone has been writing about. In my article I wanted to write about the “things” (of the Internet variety) that I found the most interesting:
Smart-Vegetable Garden (Panasonic)
Four leaf vegetables can be grown in one so-called “Smart Vegetable Garden” (which is sized at 100x50x30cm) at the same time, with Panasonic claiming that owners can expect to harvest them in about 40 days – 30% less than using conventional methods. Apart from saving time, the device also integrates a cloud-based management system to track growth, for example by automatically screening the level of water and nutrients, or the temperature.
You have to admit, that is pretty cool. I’m not sure if I’m down with the almost $8k price tag, but monitoring and tracking the growth from the internet is a pretty sweet.
Connected Cars (Mercedes, Audi, Ford)
As each year passes, the connected car makes more of a noise at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. This year several car manufacturers were touting new features, including Mercedes-Benz, Ford and Audi. The term “connected car” refers to the integration of smartphone apps and content into the car. Typically this is done via the car’s dashboard, enabling you to listen to online music, access Web data, stream video to the car’s passengers and more. In this post we’ll look at three such systems: Ford Sync, Mercedes-Benz mbrace2 and Audi Connect.
My favorite out of these is the Ford integration with the new Focus Electric. If I had an electric car, I’d want all that information on tap. Check out the demo from CES.
Health Monitoring (MyBasis)
The world’s first connected health and heart rate monitor wearable on the wrist. A multi-sensor band collects data like heart rate, calories burned, physical activity and sleep patterns and links to a personal online dashboard.
There have been a few other competitors in this space but this is the first one I’ve seen that collects heart rate. I’m a bit skeptical on how good it can be, because in my own experience the only way to get a consistent heart rate reading is by wearing one of those uncomfortable chest straps. If they can do it well it could be a product I’d be personally interested in.
Twittering Tree (Ericsson)
…a tweeting tree that was equipped with sensors to automatically send out Twitter messages when its leaves were stroked. But most impressive was the live demonstration of “capacitive coupling,” which transferred a digital photograph electronically through Vestberg’s body, from the phone in his left hand to the workstation he was touching with his right. (From Mashable)
Internet connected demos like tweeting trees, toasters and Donkey Kong toys are becoming quite the trend of the showroom floors / demo pits. (Warning: Shameless plug on our own blog) Crowd pleasing internet-enabled, inanimate objects are so much easier to do these days with things like ioBridge.
Robots Interact on MyRobots, a Social Network for Robots
RobotShop recently introduced their social network for robots called MyRobots. By allowing devices to pass messages to cloud services, MyRobots allows for interesting interactions among things and people. The idea is to make robots social and provide their information in context with how we like to communicate with each other.
“Soon, I will be able connect to the robots in my home, and MyRobots will provide me with their current status such as if all is well, they have a problem or even if they require maintenance. MyRobots will inform me in real-time of any action I need to take, thus facilitating the coexistence and communication between mankind and these increasingly intelligent machines.” -Mario Tremblay, RobotShop CEO
Internet of Things Scale
Social networking services like Twitter process over 200 million Tweets a day and when everyday objects and robots come online in the way that we see it, this number will be crushed. RobotShop built their new platform on top of ThingSpeak which is a highly scalable infrastructure for the Internet of Things created by ioBridge. ThingSpeak is open source and enables devices to interact with social networks, store data, send status updates, and track location all in real-time.
“We are excited that RobotShop selected ThingSpeak as the platform on which to build their innovative MyRobots portal. ThingSpeak is ioBridge’s open source Internet of Things cloud service. This partnership goes hand-in-hand with ioBridge’s vision of helping people benefit from being able to interact with a community of smart things” -Dr. Robert Mawrey, ioBridge CEO
MyRobots Platform
RobotShop’s domain knowledge is robots. By taking their passion for robots and pushing their ideas, they will make it very easy for robot manufactures to add the cloud, add engagement, and draw in consumers. They are well positioned with their knowledge and love of all things robot to create a successful cloud robotics platform that makes it look easy on the outside, while doing the heavy lifting on the inside.
‘Open’ for Business
MyRobots leveraged ThingSpeak to provide their platform an instant API. APIs are a way that developers can extend and interact with your system and come up with new things that you may not have originally planned for. Opening up APIs, providing source code, and letting others access data, will generate a new crop of users and ideas. And, new ideas are what the Internet of Things needs to be successful or we will see the momentum die out like we saw home automation die out 12 years ago.
In the article, “The Google Rush Toward Internet of Things”, Dana Blankenhorn, says “An open API would enable start-ups like Thingworx, for instance, bring electric utilities to the party. It lets companies like ioBridge bring cloud robotics to the party.” And, we agree. We could not have predicted that Roomba’s and robots would be using our technology to interact with each other. This is the awesome side effect of being ‘open’ for business and we are so thrilled that RobotShop brought a new idea to the table.
[via ioBridge / RobotShop Press Releases]
Socially Aware Lights, Now Wireless with XBee and ioBridge
Check out the iDigi blog for details of a new project involving CheerLights - a network of interconnected lights. In this project, Noel Portugal created a wireless version of CheerLights using Digi’s XBee radios and the ioBridge IO-204 web gateway. Lights, apps, and objects all stay linked together by listening to the Twitter Stream for colors. When a color gets tweeted to @cheerlights, all of the objects change to that color.
“It’s a way to connect physical things with social networking experiences. We are all connected.” -CheerLights
Colors from Twitter are processed via ioBridge’s Internet of Things Platform called ThingSpeak. ThingSpeak is a suite of apps to make things social and interact with each other and social networks. CheerLights takes advantage of the TweetControl app. This app can be used to monitor Twitter and then send a control signal to anything that supports HTTP like thermostats, ioBridge X10 Home Automation gear, kid’s toys, interactive trade show displays… and whatever you come up with next.
[via iDigi / My Web of Things]
Stormwater Management and Why it’s Big for the Internet of Things
ioBridge and one of our partners Geosyntec has had a lot of buzz lately. Geosyntec has been using ioBridge’s “Internet of Things” platform of hardware and software to solve BIG problems in the area of stormwater and rain water management.
The article in Scientific American and Fast Company titled How the “Internet of Things” Is Turning Cities Into Living Organism talks about how this solution is a great example of using “Internet of Things” to immediately affect the environments we live in. I especially enjoyed the analogy of the sensors in the city being the “virtual nervous system”.
“By using the Internet to connect real-world sensors and control mechanisms to cloud-based control systems that can pull in streams from any other data source, including weather reports, these efforts enable conservation and money-saving measures that would have been impossible without this virtual nervous system.”
(Even Chris Anderson of Wired / The Long Tail gave this definition of the Internet of Things a ringing endorsement.)
Why this is BIG for the Internet of Things
I feel like this is all just the tip of the iceberg for the “Internet of Things”. Solving problems like stormwater management are proving that the “Internet of Things” has a big part in solving real world problems, not just tweeting toasters.
Here’s a recipe:
1) Existing data / trends / models (i.e. weather, tides, sunlight)
2) Real time data (i.e. temperature, pressure, humidity, light)
3) “Things” that need to be controlled (i.e. fans, valves, motors)
4) Platforms for the “Internet of Things” (like what ioBridge makes)
Take a few parts real-time data analysis with existing data / trends / model, decide how and when the things that need to be controlled should function, then mix moderately with a platform for the “Internet of Things”. What can it be used for? This recipe goes well with agriculture, infrastructure, energy, water… In the end you’ll have a way to solve many large real-time problems.
As you can see, most of the components 1-3 have already existed for years. It is the recent emergence of platforms for the “Internet of Things” that provides that last mile to connect it all together and makes automatically solving real problems in real-time a reality.
Yeah… It’s kind of a big deal.
[via Scientific American / Fast Company / Wall Street Journal ]
CheerLights: a social network of lights
It’s that time of year to spread some cheer and strengthen our connections. We are all connected on this little planet and our latest projects hopes to prove this. ioBridge introduces CheerLights - a social network of lights that stay in sync with the rest of the lights linked to a messages from social networks. It’s kind of like following a trending topic on Twitter but with physical objects.
Here is a video introduction to CheerLights:
To join the CheerLights project all you have to is build a controller that subscribes to the “cheerlights” keyword, receives the latest color command, and sets the color on your lights. So, when you see the color change know that the color it is now changing all across the world. Instructions on how to build your own physical controller are based around GE G-35 Color Effects Lights and the ioBridge IO-204, ConnectPort X2, or Arduino Ethernet.
The last color processed by CheerLights is accessed through the CheerLights Channel hosted on ThingSpeak. With that data you could this a lot further and build all sorts of applications that read in that color value and do something with it. Your application could be an Android widget that shows the latest color, a set of Christmas lights, ambient orb, or dynamically setting the background color of a website.
ioBridge has been working on a way to distribute a command from a social network and distribute to thousands of end points in real-time – a many to many issue. The technology behind CheerLights paves the way for an alert system that could cascade across the globe.
[via CheerLights.com]