Help! There’s An Imp In My Coffee Pot!

Coffee. The lifeblood of our society. The sweet nectar of bean, whose chemical compound makes us feel so, so good. Doesn’t it deserve a place in the Internet of Things? [Matt] and [Don] thought so — so they connected their old coffee pot to their phones.

After receiving their developer version of the Electric Imp board, the two started thinking of small projects to test it out on; ones that might even have a real-world application. Since the Imp is capable of receiving inputs via the web, it’s super easy to write an app to control things — in this case, a coffee pot.

Hardware-wise it was actually pretty simple. The coffee pot control board provides power for the Imp, and the On/Off switch of the coffee maker is wired to one of the Imp’s outputs. One simple app later, and boom we have wireless java capabilities. Heh. Java.

Who knew an imp could brew such good coffee? Arduinos aren’t too bad either.

20 thoughts on “Help! There’s An Imp In My Coffee Pot!

  1. A friends maker like that one quit. The thermal fuses were good, the heater open. It was dirty and rusty , then I saw it.
    A chocolate kiss sized and shaped blob of aluminum! Stopped only by the steel bottom. Yikes!

    1. When tearing down consumer devices I find a lot of them are really cheaply constructed inside. For some things it does not matter, but for things that use a lot of current I think it is pretty scary. That includes crock pots, coffee makers, toaster ovens, etc.

      After seeing the guts I’m not only worried about leaving a crock pot on while I am gone, I have concerned about leaving it plugged in and switched off!

      That said, I did salvage some very nice silicone jacketed wire from a coffee maker.

  2. I still prefer old fashioned manual control. Never know when ISP fouls up and you have no internet access. Just think, your coffee machine spits out 500 not found error and leaves you with caffine withdrawal because you forgot that you could bypass the hack and turn it on manually.

    Or when hacker gets in and turns on the machine, makes it spit out hot water without the pot in place.

  3. I don’t brew my own coffee (I’m a canned ice mocha guy) but seems to me on and off are less practical than telling me pot temp, coffee level and when a pot is ready. I guess in thinking more of an office environment.
    Imagine starting a pot, only to have the whole office rush the break room precisely as the pot finishes brewing.

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