Using twine for telemetry

[3930dave]

Being TBN, I had to use that title

I heard about this on CBC radio (our NPR) recently.

Supermechanical : Twine - Listen to your world, talk to the Internet

I haven't really started to research this product yet, but thought I'd share it here now. The "magic" that will make this worthwhile to me is if they have the full software stack thoroughly validated - reporting across the internet is attractive to many people, but only if it is stable.

I have a few things that this could be a good fit for. The guy down the road that had 3' of water in the basement of his vacation home sure could have used one !

Other than being an interested consumer, I have no affiliation with this company.

Rgds, D.

[MikeFarm]

Hi all

OK looks like quite a neat product. There are quite a few devices like this but most need a little simple programming. This one has programming like this:
> The rules ... read like English: WHEN moisture sensor gets wet THEN text "The basement is flooding!"
The problem with using English like constructs for programming is that it doesn't work when I write "WHEN moisture sensors get wet THEN text "The basement is flooding!". I wonder what if any debugger it comes with? Altough I see it comes with a web based GUI.

Once you start to use devices like this for 3rd party external sensors you always find that it needs real programming. Still it's built in Orientation sensor might be useful "When orientation is bigger than 30 text 'Tractor is about to flip!' " :-)

Mike

[Tig]

Looks like a great product. More turnkey than the Arduino based project I was pondering.
The only thing that I would prefer to avoid is the "cloud based service" that this product relies on for a gateway. If the company that runs this service folds, your twine is then orphaned.

[Baby Grand]

And here I thought this was going to have something to do witha length of string and a pair of soup cans.

[DutchHenryBrown]

And here I thought this was going to have something to do witha length of string and a pair of soup cans.

Me too? Oh well not the first time I have been fooled and not the last!!

[3930dave]

Looks like a great product. More turnkey than the Arduino based project I was pondering.
The only thing that I would prefer to avoid is the "cloud based service" that this product relies on for a gateway. If the company that runs this service folds, your twine is then orphaned.

Can't say I'm a big fan of the Cloud, for the reason you mentioned amongst others. Early days..... after further review, I might plunk down some cash and get the combo pack to mess with. Past life - did my share of ultra low level programming, so I expect I can stumble through whatever they have. Will be interested in the expansion board.

If the company crashes, somebody may take over the server, or if the community is large enough, somebody make come up with a friendly hack/patch/workaround. Time will tell.

What probably will decide the fate of this product is the User Friendliness of their programming interface. Easy to use, and productive will be the acid test.

Rgds, D.

[3930dave]

And here I thought this was going to have something to do witha length of string and a pair of soup cans.

String and cans are way too reliable, nobody can sell you software updates, new Apps, and all sorts of other junk that is obsolete before it is produced !

I like simple solutions, to most problems, and don't like Technology Just Because We Can. Too much tech is created by Answering the Question Nobody Asked.

All that said, getting an email notification if/when my sump seizes up has a real appeal to me.

I could set up a really loud Klaxon outside my house for sump pump failure, but prefer to stay on good terms with my neighbours !

Rgds, D.

[Larry Caldwell]

Twine is way too lossy for long range communication. Heck, I was only 8 years old when I upgraded to aluminum electric fence wire between the barn and the house.

[3930dave]

Twine is way too lossy for long range communication. Heck, I was only 8 years old when I upgraded to aluminum electric fence wire between the barn and the house.

Now that would get your attention, when putting up a metal can up to your ear !

Rgds, D.

[dmccarty]

I read this thread and the link a few days ago. It was interesting and I was thinking there was a way for me to use TWINE but I could not remember what I would do with the device.

A few days later, I remembered. It would be interesting to know the temperature in the well house. I looked TWINE up on Amazon and a review mentioned Raspberry Pi, Raspberry Pi | An ARM GNU/Linux box for $25. Take a byte!, which is a small, cheap, but powerful PC. The problem with Rasberry is that one would have to do the work to setup the programming and sensor. It seems pretty powerful and cheap.

Later,
Dan