It would work the same as an existing thermostat really, so again, I'm just kinda throwing ideas around about what COULD be done, and trying to come up with a practical use-case that makes sense and isn't quite so obvious.

A thermometer could be used like a thermostat if a room, sure, or it could also be used to give real-time feedback on the inside of your BBQ grill, the water in a pool or hot tub, or anything else we could think of.

Just the whole idea of taking a piece of hardware that can return data about itself or what's around it, and then attaching that to the vast number of online services available to developers these days. There are things that have already been doing or would be pretty easy for existing hardware manufacturers to do, but there's SO MUCH data and networking service available online now that haven't been around all that long, so I know there are some interesting things that could be done that aren't being done yet. Just need to put my finger on it.

Here's what you need to build. Look at the price tag, and theres normally a 3 month backlog of orders.

http://www.cyanogen.com/fix.php

Here's the cost page

http://www.cyanogen.com/cloud_buy.php

They sell 2-4000 a year.

The problem with something like that is I don't have thousands and thousand of dollars to defend myself against patent and trademark infringement claims. I'm already the victim of "nuisances lawsuits" where a competing company knows damn good and well they have absolutely no shot at winning the case, but they also know I don't have enough money to defend myself. I'm going through that right now with my GiveMobiley solution, unfortunately.

So, ideally, I'd like to come up with something that isn't directly competing with an existing product.

Use that board to build a device like this. Ive seen people doing it from parts for $50 - 100. then just do what you do best and write the software to record the reading in a simple comma delineated file.

Easy peezy.

This reminds me of http://smartthings.com/... I have a developer license on it's way... as these smart devices are being delivered in Dec...

Motion and geo proximity based smart devices are going to be very popular over the next few years.

I can't say for sure, but it actually looks like those guys are using the Arduino platform. It's open-source (free) and available for people to do exactly that...package it up and provide it to people for a price.

They're probably going to provide developers an easier way to do things with Arduino, which would be great depending on their royalties. Again, everything they're doing in that video (whether it is indeed Arduino or not) is exactly the same as Arduino works. Starting with that basic board housed in their "hub", soldering on extra parts to handle different tasks, and writing software apps to control it all.

I'll have to keep my eye on them. If they provide enough of an improvement over Arduino itself to justify their cost I'll probably use them. Otherwise, I'll just stick with Arduino directly since it's free.

NNNNNEEEERRRDDDD!!!!!!!!!

That would be a cool security system trigger. Play the right chords to unlock the gate.

Make a small robot that will patrol your home. Try to rig sensors in line with biological presence. Change in local temp, sound, vibration, etc. Also include a camera that will take stills when possible biological presence is detected, tweet/text you, with the option of turning on a video/audio stream that you can access. While you are doing this market the intermediate stages as a house pet observation device.

For dieters connect the system to fridge and cupboards door and require X amount of activity using motion detection to trigger the lock and get something to eat.

A networked chicken coop door actuator. A nice iphone front end, too, please.

Suburban chicken keepers will love it.

Route tracking on forklifts in a large warehouse. Use the data to create the ideal WH layout, increasing efficiency.

So far as I know, they're totally manual.

You hire a consultancy who hires a guy who stands around and watches people come in and out of your store. After awhile, they write up a report and suggest you move some stuff around.

Oh, and send you an enormous bill.

That's about it.

FAX

A group in my senior design class is using this in their project. They are designing a system that turns on the humidifiers and heaters in a yoga studio and then maintains the preset temperature and humidity. They have it set up so that the owner can control it all through an iphone app anywhere he has wifi or 3G. Definitely cool technology.