Richard MacManus of ReadWriteWeb wrote an article about ioBridge and Matt Morey’s home automation project via Twitter. Matt created a system that allows him to not only get messages from his office, but to control lights and devices using Twitter. He now has a real-time, two-control system for automating some processes at his office using the ioBridge IO-204 monitor and control module.
“ioBridge enables sending data to -- or controlling objects from -- social networks, email, text messaging.”
Thanks to Oprah, Twitter is a household name. You can’t avoid it. But, Twitter uses are starting to flourish thanks to an API and dedicated developers. Matt Morey has developed a two-way, home automation application using Twitter to control lights and LCDs and monitor temperature and light sensors. His app interfaces Twitter with the ioBridge IO-204 by using the PHP Widget Control API.
Follow MattsOffice on Twitter
Matt’s Twitter application allows him to make updates to his Twitter feed and send commands to his IO-204 to turn on lights, send messages to his serial LCD screen, and get temperatures and light sensor readings. He also has a nifty extension that allows you to see a view from his office by sending him a tweet, which takes a snap shot from a digital camera and posts it on TwitPic.
We wanted to say thanks to everyone that visited us at the Maker Faire. We had a 10×10 booth filled with web-based projects – Scrolling LED Twitter Sign, Internet Controlled Donkey Kong, Power Monitoring, Dog Treat Dispenser, X10 Outlet Control, Temperature Charting and Logging, and an Interactive Message Center for the Serial LCD Screens. Our booth consumed 4 kWh over 2 days and peak power usage was 290 Watts.
Maker Faire Projects
Lots of people helped out to make it happen – thanks to OharaRP and thecapacity for working the LED sign. Maker Faire had some really interesting projects – underwater robots from Jesuit Robotics, a Giant LED display, Tesla Coils, Art Meets Science, cool stuff in the Maker Shed, and lots of people.
Here are some photos from Flickr of our booth before we got swarmed:
Since Jason’s Fishcam has hit the scene, there have been a few ioBridge-based aquarium monitor and control projects pop up. The fish cam has evolved into interactive displays, temperature monitoring, water level control, fish feeding, tank aeration, Twitter integration, killer gators, and burping frogs. The interface for full control and monitoring of aquariums are using a web browser or iPhone. The systems use the IO-204 Ethernet module to control outputs, lights, X10, and servos and monitor inputs, temperature, and water levels.
Check out Pete’s TankedCAM.com and Kevin’s BurpTheFrog.com for some really awesome interactive aquarium projects with full on Web 2.0 services.
Here is a cool video from TankedCAM demonstrating all of the interactive features.
Stephen from the iPhone Dog Feeder fame, sent us a video of how to use the x10 controller with the ioBridge module to control lights. He has a lamp setup in his lab that he can control from his Cygnet blog and his ioBridge dashboard.
Here is the YouTube video of the x10 smart board in action:
