We have entered a new age of Twitter utility. From simple bedroom lights to houseplants to historic bridges, the inanimate is coming alive in the form of tweets to alert and respond to user interactions.
Control lights on Twitter (source: Justin)
Someone recently figured out how to turn off their lights with Twitter. Beyond being a burglar deterrent or conveniently illuminating the room as you pull into the driveway, I’m not clear about the practical applications. If one is going to go to the trouble to rig up computer electronics to the home electrical circuits, it seems there might be better ways to automate such things. Then again, these feats of simple engineering are likely paving the way for more complicated and useful integrations of Twitter in the future.
There are other recent examples of Twitter being used to provide remote communication with physical structures.
The London Bridge now tweets, alerting its 209 followers when the bridge is going up and down. There is a schedule available, but it isn’t always at the tip of a Brit’s mind to check the web site. Some developers engineered a way for the bridge to tweet five minutes before it lifts, and again when it closes. Sitting in my office, I can’t count the number of times I wished the Bloomington Transit bus line was as proactive about when the bus had reached campus.
This spring also gave rise to a twittering plant. Bontanicalls has a blow-by-blow how-to instruction page to rig up a houseplant to tweet when it is thirsty. When a plant on the network needs water, it can call to ask for exactly what it needs and give thanks when it is shows some love. There are five different status updates: low moisture, critically low moisture, not enough watering, over watering, and thirst quenched.
I have my own little project planned involving a Pleo. Like the others, the utility of such an integration is probably low, but the technical experience gained by hooking one interactive physical device with an online communication channel could lead to more interesting advances down the road.
