[nothans] felt that there were enough people curious about his toaster’s status that he built a system to update the world via twitter. Using the ioBridge module and a switch on the toaster, the world can now know when [Hans] is making toast. We recently saw someone use the same unit to feed their dog remotely.
Twittering Toaster
In the Quiet Words of the Virgin Mary… Come Again?
I want to see the next evoloution of this where _EVERYTHING_ and I mean _EVERYTHING_ in someone’s house is fed into twitter to make it some kind of ridiculous home status change long.
i accept your challenge.
I know this article will get lots of “who the hell cares what his toaster is doing”, but they just don’t understand. A toaster twittering that it’s making toast is freakin’ awesome. Props to this guy for doing it. Would be better if both side of the toaster twittered.
First this, then talky the toaster (Red Dwarf reference).
I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.
Ugh, Twitter. . .
This project sums up so eloquently how I feel about Twitter in general. Bravo.
a much more meaningful use for twitter than most people who log onto it have…
What other home appliances that shouldn’t be connected to the internet can we connect??? Hrm the toilet perhaps? The possibilities are ENDLESS!
It’s be more useful if it monitored the toilet paper roll. At least then you’d know when you needed to change the roll.
a little ridiculous but i see some real potential with that controller. home automation with phone controls and what not but the toaster is just pointless but if you did it right you could probably hook an entire security system to the internet it looks pretty good anyway i think im going to buy one, it just needs wifi support!
A more appropriate application for this would be remote home security, tap into existing sensors and print what doors or sensors are triggered.
@UltraApple:
I believe that’s called shitter, patent pending.
I could see hooking something like this up to my bread machine, tweaking it for extra long dough rise times, feedback on oven temperature, etc.
Amazingly dumb use of the device, considering the potential. And I agree with everyone else…this is the most intelligent use of twitter I’ve yet to see.
The most important thing is the device(s)…I’ve never seen this before, and I’ve been looking to setup some security as network nodes. I want a few smoke alarms tcp/ip enabled too…this will do the trick.
As if twitter wasn’t useless enough … but great device
@3d and ultraapple: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/04/23/le-twittre/ also noteworthy is http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/12/17/
a twittering toaster? i care not so much. a twittering shower head? might actually be useful to monitor your water usage with, especially if you could compare your usage to others. could also be good for monitoring other devices in the house (especially when you tell the kids/wife/husband/llama not to use it).
whats next ? twitter condoms ?
@zsteva
attention Twitter users, %username% has just delivered his powerload.
this is Completely useless, who gives a crap when someone is making toast, next the user will have it send the status update to his phone, to make sure he knows he’s making toast.
Or he will have instant notification in the event that his toaster decides to go on a rampage.
thnaks to everyone who has confirmed my utter bewilderment at the whole concept of twitter.
“so and so is feeling sad”
“someone you hate has just bought some new climbing shoes”
I don’t give a flying f**K!!!
I struggle to understand twitter and its tweaters in general, these are items in peoples life that simple are unimportant to everyone else in the world, why waste bandwidth (however plentiful it is) updating people with things that in no way enrich their lives?!
I’ve got some bad news about the company marketing this hardware…(iobridge.net)…apparently the hardware is setup to *only* go thru their server. :/
See forum post here: http://www.iobridge.net/forum/index.php/topic,9.0.html
So…now if/when they go out of business or their site is down you are fscked. Awesome. I don’t want to use their server even if it *never* went down…I hate being locked in.
I’m going to hook up something like this to my washer and dryer.
Could have at least put the switch inside. And it only works on the one side. And it’d be far better if it told you what setting you had it on. Better yet, as mentioned in the comments, it’d actually be useful if you could enter “making toast” on twitter and the toaster started the process. Although your bread might get dry waiting :)
@ “of itself this is useless”- well of course it is, but it demonstrates how to make your home appliances update twitter which could be useful if you want to monitor pets, your heating furnace, a weather station, your underground robot-automated meth lab, etc.
@ “what is the point of twitter in the first place”- I wonder what the point of using it as a real-time LJ/blog/online bitching machine is, but every once in a while there is an occurrence that I want to share with a few people I know would appreciate it (finding nostalgic items of snack food I thought had disappeared years ago, finally seeing the film trailer I was waiting for online, you get the idea).
This is a big step-I think I get it-the site can also send a text on any type of event
I want an analog proof of concept next. Maybe volume displacement in my toilet is next.
I am the last to find this toaster. I notice every latest project has twitted involved.
That setup looks pretty easy. Can the bridge send stuff to other addresses. Who cares about Twitter? I want something that tells ME.
Hardy, yes the iobridge can send to other addresses. I also have it ubernote – ing some environmental data like temp, humidity, color depth. Soon, myToaster will make the best toast as possible.