“I originally got the idea due to my interest in gardening. But when my son was born, I wanted to monitor the temperature and humidity in his bedroom overnight for health reasons, and I was surprised to find no low-cost, simple iPhone solution existed.”Marc Nicholas, creator of Motes
Marc Nicholas is CTO of Wimoto and created Motes, which are currently available via a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo. Motes are small, portable sensors that can detect temperature, humidity and light levels anywhere. They can be placed almost anywhere. They last about a year on a single battery and don’t require an internet connection to work.
There are three flavors corresponding with the three functions described above: Climotes, Growmotes, and Thermotes. Core to the function of these sensors is the companion smartphone app, currently completed for iOS devices with an Android version on the way. More on the app situation…
Our app features a minimalist deisgn and works with the whole range of Motes — no need to launch separate apps for each type. Simple “sparkline” graphing is available on your iPhone and iPad to indicate trends and data can easily be uplaoded to the cloud service for more detailed graphing and data export with the click of an icon.
Signal strength and battery life for each Mote is displayed whilst that Mote is selected.
We will have an Android version of the app for Android 4.3 devices in June or July of 2013, although this is dependant on Google releasing Anrdoid 4.3 with a fully supported version of the Broadcom Bluetooth 4.0 stack. Only devices that have the necessary hardware (most Samsung devices, Google Nexus, etc.) will be compatible — please ask if you’re unsure if your device will be supported.
There are many more things you can do with these cool little devices. The campaign page explains some of the different features and options. Motes will alert your smartphone or tablet when certain conditions are met. You can even graph historical data via an available cloud service.
Motes are set to retail for $49, but they’re available for $39 during the Indiegogo campaign.
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