*First comes a bunch of use-cases, like the doors that spam you with SMS messages and the fridge that nags you for milk – ideas as old as the "smart home," that have never worked for obvious human-interface reasons – but then they start getting down to brass tacks about the tech itself, its capacities and price-points, and suddenly it gets pretty interesting.
*Forget automating household routines. That's expensive and dangerous. Re-think everything from the point of view of experience design. If you add a Kinect-style motion-controller to this Electric Imp controller you can "live in the cloud" and get rid of every analog mechanical interface in your house. The touchpoints, the faucets, light-switches, doorknobs, locks, thermostats, windowlatches, they all just vanish, they're all cleanlined away. Every ongoing expense in the house shuts down except in the space you occupy.
*In a couple of days I'm going to be having a few words on this subject in Eindhoven.
http://undertomorrowssky.liamyoung.org/
(...)
"Wi-Fi connected devices aren’t exactly new. We’ve already seen the Withings and FitBit Aria scales, both of which send your weight data to the internet for graphing and tracking. And home automation, of course, is a growth sector. Microsoft Research recently announced its HomeOS, Samsung showed off its Home Energy Management System at CES 2012, and Google debuted Android@Home at last year’s I/O conference.
"But what makes Electric Imp unique — and perhaps a better solution than others — is that it can work with any electronic device. You don’t need to lock into a relatively closed system from a single standards alliance (for example, the Z-Wave home automation protocol).
"The whole Imp service is based in the cloud, so there’s no need for a central controller or networking protocol. It’s incredibly easy to set up. And it’s inexpensive — Electric Imp has targeted its Imp boards (the hardware into which the Imp cards are slotted) to cost manufacturers less than a dollar. (((That's rather cheap.)))
"It’s critical to note that Electric Imp isn’t making or selling actual consumer electronics. (((Because the Chinese would annihilate them.))) Rather, its technology just provides gadgets with a simple way to connect to Wi-Fi, and offers a platform for vendors (((because they think they can market that, presumably))) and consumers to configure how they want their product to work. To this end, Electric Imp could save would-be gadget manufacturers from expensive and time-consuming development paths.
“With all of the current Wi-Fi objects, like the Withings scale, the company has to figure out its Wi-Fi configuration and the technology itself. They’ve reinvented a whole connection wheel just to send a tiny amount of information up,” Fiennes said. “But you could put a slot in, and Electric Imp will do all the hard work. You can send the reading, and it’s all done. Imp provides the service.” (((It's because this sounds obscure that it's a big deal.)))
"Each Imp card comes with Wi-Fi radio supporting 802.11b/g/n and has nine pins, two for power and one that communicates with an ID chip that will reside in every Imp-capable device. The other six pins are available for developers and manufacturers to configure on a case-by-case basis, according to their product needs.
"For example, a device manufacturer could write code so that one pin is used to send tweets, while another collects the latest headlines from Google News. All the software running this show is stored in Electric Imp’s cloud service, and the Imp card will know which software to pull down from the ether based on the ID chip in the device’s Imp circuit board. (((For real? That's messed-up.)))
"For this very reason, Imp cards are completely device-independent. You can insert one in your dishwasher, and then later move it to your stereo receiver if you think it will provide more utility there. (((It would provide some utility if I could turn my stereo on by pointing my hand at it. Better yet if the stereo just disassembles entirely into Imp-linked components, so that all my music's in the cloud and speakers spontaneously wake up and regale me with Skrillex dubstep as I'm walking around from room to room. Again, it's about my experience of wireless cloud interaction, it's not about attaching extra gadget components to extra gadget components.)))
"Currently, the software side of Imp is still in developer mode. The web-based Planner app, where users set up how they want their Imps to work, features drag-and-drop boxes with connecting lines. (((I love that. It's hilarious that app-making is becoming as simple as possible – and even simpler. Check out this Google "Blocky" thing. Does that look like "coding" to you? We may get to "code art" yet, in the sense that the code itself looks like a kid's crayon art sketch.)))
http://blockly-demo.appspot.com/blockly/demos/maze/index.html
"It’s a prototype, and the company is working on creating a more simple, consumer-facing user interface. (((How about "apparently none at all"? That way you can monetize him while he's asleep.))) According to Kevin Fox, Electric Imp’s Director of User Experience, most of the consumer configuration will take place on a smartphone app, which will be available for iOS and Android devices. (((That figures.)))
"So what does it all look like in action? Fiennes showed us several hardware applications, ranging from the universally useful to the very specific (and often strange). (((I'll be bidding on the "often strange," please, Wired GadgetLab.)))
"As you’d expect, something simple like a light switch could come with an Electric Imp slot. (((Don't ADD it to the light switch, re-engineer the analog system and GET RID of the light switch.))) You just push your Imp card into the slot, and set up your Wi-Fi with Electric Imp’s Blinkup (((http://farmfountain.com/
"Better yet, you could connect the water stick to some lights, and have the lights dim (or turn off) once the water is low — a useful application for a Christmas tree.
((("Christmas tree" hell, bring on the hylozoic forest of waving, blinking, plastic fronds.)))
http://www.dezeen.com/2010/08/27/hylozoic-ground-by-philip-beesley/
"You could even have an Imp-connected electric mouse trap that lets you know when a mouse has been caught. (((How nice that they've actually "built a better mousetrap." Maybe you can Blinkup the great Ralph Waldo Emerson and have him spin in his Transcendental grave.))) And, of course, you could have appliances, like washers and dryers, that track your usage, or have Imp-connected motion sensors that alert you when someone walks into a room. (((
