Make your home healthier (and smarter) with Beagle

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Beagle is your home’s best friend: a range of smart sensors to monitor air quality, humidity, air pressure, and noise and light levels.

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Americans spend about 90% of their time indoors, but did you know that the air within our homes could be more polluted than outdoor air? Many sources can contribute to indoor pollution, from inadequate ventilation, to wet or damp carpet, to high indoor temperatures and humidity, and more. With so much time spent inside, the overall environment matters when it comes to our health. But addressing those factors can be laborious and potentially expensive, so how can we breathe easy and live comfortably in our homes without breaking the bank and our backs?

Beagle can do the work for you, and we’re not talking about an animal (although its concept is similar to a canary in a coal mine). Developed by Ottawa-based startup Beagle Sense, this range of smart sensors for your home can monitor and alert you on the things that contribute to you and your family’s health. Each Beagle has its own sensing task, and its portability allows you to put a sensor anywhere you want to keep tabs on things. It can sniff out air quality, air pressure, humidity, noise and light levels and even temperature.

A few tricks Beagle can show you include: monitoring light levels that keep your drowsiness low and productivity high while working; alerts on humidity and air pressure that may trigger headaches, migraines, or joint pain; and letting you know the suitable temperatures for sleeping.

There is no need to train your Beagle. Rather, it has an easy 3-step installation: simply plug in the Beagle base station to a power source, then connect it to your Wi-Fi network and pair it with your laptop or smartphone to access its web interface and mobile app, respectively. Beagle can inform you on changes to make in your home, such as opening a window to improve air quality, or notifying you about leaks in your basement to prevent mold. They can also be stacked together for customization and to deliver comprehensive insight on how to optimize your environment.

Suppose you want to track sleep quality in your room or the nursery, you can place the light, indoor noise, and temperature Beagles together, and the Beagle Serenity Score can help ensure a restful sleep. Now you’re fully connected and the master of your own house!

The Beagle sensors use Bluetooth to communicate with its base station, and are magnetic, so it can sit still wherever you put it. It doesn’t take much to keep your system up and running, and only requires a yearly change of AAA batteries. Plus, each sensor stores up to two weeks of data if your Wi-Fi connectivity drops, or if the power goes out.

Ready to unleash a healthier home? Head over to Beagle’s Kickstarter page, where the team is currently seeking $50,065. The first batch of units is expected to ship in May 2016 — just in time to begin opening up your windows for some fresh spring air!

Ember keeps your coffee at a desirable temperature for hours

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This smartphone-controlled mug will let you enjoy your morning coffee at the perfect temperature with every sip.

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For years, the deal with travel mugs have remained pretty much same. You pour some coffee or tea into a plastic tumbler, throw on a lid and head out the door. Over the course of your hour-long commute, its contents slowly loses its heat and before you know it, you arrive at the office or to class with a lukewarm beverage. With this in mind, one California-based startup has developed what they’re calling “the world’s first intelligent mug,” which allows you to enjoy your morning pick-me-up at a desirable temperature with every sip.

Not only will it keep your coffee or tea warm for hours, the Ember even cools down your scalding hot liquid to a more drinkable temperature. And we know what you’re all thinking, “Not another smart bottle!” But here’s the thing, unlike other connected containers, the mug was crafted for comfort and convenience while sipping on a beverage, not so much collecting data or quantifying consumption. Plus, it boasts a sleek, elegant and button-free design with most of its high-tech features tucked away.

Equipped with a built-in heating system, the Ember enables you to adjust the temperature by simply turning a dial at its base, upon which a hidden display will illuminate to indicate the degrees. The 12-ounce mug will then sustain that internal climate for about two hours while on the go, or all day long if placed on top of its companion charging coaster.

For those who rather not twist a dial, Ember can also pair with an accompanying smartphone app via Bluetooth. With the app, you can create presets for all of your favorites, control your coffee or tea remotely, and receive notifications whenever your drink has reached its ideal temperature.

However, inside is where all the magic happens. A proprietary passive cooling and an active heating system are embedded into Ember’s insulated walls, which are made of phase-change materials that allow the mug to warm and cool precisely. Meanwhile, a microprocessor and sensors are tasked with monitoring the coffee.

Though a built-in screen shows the temperature of your drink, the display seamlessly blends in with the surface of the mug, so it’s invisible when off. To turn it on, simply press a capacitive touch button behind the Ember logo. Beyond that, Ember’s lid features a push-to-open mechanism that securely seals in the liquid and prevents spills, along with a unique 360-degree design that lets you drink from any side.

And for the iced coffee or tea lovers out there, don’t worry, the mug keeps it cool in the same way that a standard travel mug does. Intrigued? Head over to Ember’s Indiegogo campaign, which blew right past its $50,000 goal. Delivery is slated for April 2016.

Helium will make sense of your “things”

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Helium is an integrated platform that monitors, learns and captures insights from the physical things in your environment. 

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With aspirations of becoming the “Android for the IoT,” Helium has designed an integrated platform that brings the power of the cloud to the edge of the network, enabling users to observe, learn and capture actionable insights from existing physical ‘things’ in their environment. And the timing couldn’t be better. As a growing number of companies enter the IoT market, many find themselves challenged by the complexity of implementing new systems.

Rather than having to build them from scratch, Helium is offering an end-to-end service that connects businesses to the IoT using 802.15.4 networks. The platform itself consists of reprogrammable smart sensors, the cloud and a real-time analytics dashboard.

Unlike traditional sensor providers that are focused primarily on connectivity, Helium’s approach adds intelligence and new functionality that help “things” learn over time, allowing users to evolve their system by asking sensors to behave differently. Ideally, the two-year-old startup is hoping to target companies that serve as integrators, but has selected the medical, food service and grocery industries to first showcase its capabilities by surveilling smart refrigerators. Looking ahead, Helium can be used for a wide variety of enterprise applications, ranging from tracking the location of goods in a warehouse to avoid lost inventory to keeping tabs on the status of industrial machines to predict failures before they occur.

“We are trying to solve the problems of making highly configurable distributed systems that move as fast on the edge as you do these days in the cloud. If you can reach end nodes with software easily and quickly it’s a competitive advantage,” Helium president and COO Rob Chandhok recently told EE Times.

Helium begins with its nodes, which include a RF module, a sensor and an ARM Cortex-M4 main board. The network is based on an Atmel 802.15.4 physical-layer chip, and employs its own media-access control and software stack rather than 6LoWPAN or ZigBee. This gives it the ability to avoid Wi-Fi and Bluetooth congestion by dynamically switching between 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz frequency bands. Helium’s radio does not rely on mesh, but can run for year on a pair of AA batteries.

What’s more, the optimized sensors can be unboxed and deployed within minutes, and feature multiple sensing inputs, a secure wireless network and local computing power, all in a compact form factor. For instance, one Helium sensor can measure temperature and door status in a single unit and be enabled on a refrigerator with just the pull of a battery tab. Once installed, Helium’s smart sensors use combined data intelligently to make monitoring both sophisticated and simple.

The sensors are only one spoke of the wheel, however. Helium will also take care of all the backend software, collecting information from the nodes, sifting through the data in the cloud and then analyzing it on an easy-to-use app. Every sensor reading is stored in Helium’s cloud infrastructure, allowing for historical and real-time access.

From wireless connected sensors to complex event processing, Helium provides users with the power of perception by sensing temperature, motion, sound, pressure and moisture for intelligent solutions that can increase efficiency, avoid loss from equipment failure and reduce downtime. It goes without saying that the consequences of getting embedded systems wrong can be pretty significant. Take the Stanford Children’s Health Center, for example, which had to repeat the vaccinations of more than 1,500 people after discovering that the medication had routinely fallen below freezing point. In a situation like this, Helium could monitor the refrigeration conditions and connect to the Internet to offer real-time notifications should should the temperature drop below its predefined range. Problem solved!

“The rest of the competition is either piecing together open source software or using old techniques to get embedded-node software into the cloud, but not providing a compelling IoT platform. I can’t walk down Market Street without hearing about 100 IoT companies, but not ones broadly targeting the enterprise,” Chandhok shares.

Intrigued? Head over to its official page to learn more, or read this detailed writeup on the platform from EE Times.

HAIZE is a smart compass for urban cyclists

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This “magical compass” will always point to where you want to go using its LED display.

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HAIZE is a new type of navigation system designed for cyclists, particularly those commuting throughout a city. The device works like a magic compass in the sense that, instead of pointing north, it points to the destination you set in its accompanying mobile app. Ultimately, it will help make your ride safer by letting you keep your smartphone in your pocket and eyes on the road.

The brainchild of London-based startup onomo, HAIZE can easily be attached to any bicycle via its integrated rubber band and is compact enough that you can always bring it wherever you go. Once affixed to your handlebar, simply define the destination in its companion app, put your phone away and allow HAIZE to guide you from point A to B. Its 23-LED display will show you the way as well as keep you abreast of the distance to your destination.

Using HAIZE’s minimalistic screen, you’ll have all the information you need at a glance. Both direction and distance are represented by a set of outer and central LEDs, respectively. You can select between two different modes of navigation: compass mode that points you in the direction of your final destination as you make your way throughout the city streets freely and navigation mode that shares a specific route with turn-by-turn notifications.

While being used as a compass, an outer LED will point toward your destination while an inner LED will blink faster the closer you get to your journey’s end. If the central light ever becomes red, that means you’re going further out of the way. When navigating, the amount of outer LEDs will denote the distance remaining and any upcoming turns. When it’s time to go left or right, only the outer LED will appear while the central light will flash white in shorter intervals the closer you get to your final stop.

Housed inside its anodized aluminum shell lies an ATmega328 at its core, along with an accelerometer and gyroscope to determine position, a magnetometer to track direction, a light sensor to regulate the LED brightness in various conditions and a rechargeable 300mAh battery that offers two weeks of use. Aside from that, HAIZE uses an embedded Bluetooth 4.0 module to communicate with its smartphone app.

Looking ahead, the team hopes to utilize all of its embedded hardware to locate friends, monitor ride activity, collect trip data, receive incoming calls and text messages, as well as detect accidents and automatically alert emergency contacts. Sound like a system you’d like to mount onto your handlebar? Race over to HAIZE’s Kickstarter campaign, where onomo is currently seeking $76,645. Units are expected to begin shipping in June 2016 — just in time for summer!

Thanks to SIGFOX, San Francisco now has its own IoT network

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SIGFOX has completed its rollout across San Francisco, with 10 other U.S. cities planned by the first quarter of 2016.

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The Golden Gate Bridge. Cable cars. Rice-A-Roni. The Giants. These are just some of the things that San Francisco is known for. Next on that list: its own IoT network.

As part of an ongoing project to implement a wireless network throughout the Bay Area, SIGFOX has officially completed its citywide rollout of San Francisco. What’s more, the French startup plans to do the same across 10 U.S. metropolitan areas by the first quarter of next year, including New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, Austin, Houston, Atlanta, Dallas and San Jose.

Whereas employing a conventional cell modem to connect everyday objects to the physical Internet would consume a tremendous amount of energy, SIGFOX enables millions of low-power devices with minimal data streams to communicate with one another in a slower but more efficient way. The company’s LPWAN (low-power wide-area network) only transmits a minute amount of information at a mere 100 bits per second, but can support millions of connections.

The use of UNB (Ultra Narrow Band) based radio technology is key to providing a scalable, high-capacity network, with very low energy consumption, while maintaining a simple and easy star-based cell infrastructure. Not only is building out SIGFOX’s infrastructure much less expensive than an entire phone network, it runs on the unlicensed wireless band of 900MHz in the U.S.

For its flagship rollout in the Bay Area, SIGFOX has partnered with the city’s Department of Technology, the Mayor’s Office of Innovation and critical leadership to place 20 of its briefcase-sized base stations on the top of libraries and city buildings, each covering a radius of 12 to 18 miles. Instead of the smartphones and tablets we use to stream video, this particular network is catered towards all the other “things” you might want to link to the Internet that only need to send a few packets of data periodically, such as parking meters, fire hydrants, utility panels, traffic sensors and even wearables.

In order to achieve scalability, the startup partners with existing cell tower owners and uses off-the-shelf hardware. With an annual subscription of approximately $1 per year per device, SIGFOX’s connection price will still be much lower than those of other mobile operators. Meanwhile, device makers will have to integrate an inexpensive SIGFOX-Ready radio chip like the Atmel ATA8520 SoC.

SIGFOX tells Forbes that a geographical region the size of the entire state of California only calls for around 1,500 microcells, in comparison to a 20,000-somwhat for a conventional cellular network. Take Spain for instance, which took just one year to be entirely covered.

“If the last 10 years of technology development were about making it easier for companies and people to exchange information with one another—Google, Skype, Dropbox, and so on—the next 10 years will be about making it possible, cost effective and easy for the unconnected physical world to transmit data to the Internet,” explains Allen Proithis, president of SIGFOX North America.

In November, SIGFOX and the city of San Francisco will jointly sponsor a hackathon, in order to allow developers and Makers to use the technology and generate new ideas for how the network can be utilized to create innovative smart city solutions. Intrigued? Head over to SIGFOX’s page to learn more.

Pico is like the Keurig for homebrewing beer

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Pico is a fully-automatic appliance that lets anyone brew their own mini kegs of craft beer, on demand.

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Consuming an ice-cold brewski isn’t that difficult. Brewing it on your own, well that’s a different story. Fortunately, one Seattle-based startup is looking to do the same for beer as the Keurig has done for coffee. PicoBrew’s 3D printer-like appliance can be used by just about anyone to craft their own malted beverage inside their own home.

If the name sounds familiar, it’s probably because you recall the team’s initial product, the Zymatic, which debuted earlier this year. The ATmega1284P powered device enabled ale aficionados to make their own stouts, porters and IPAs right from their kitchen. PicoBrew had raised more than $660,000 on Kickstarter and has since shipped more than a thousand machines. Now, its creators have returned with a smaller, faster and more user-friendly version of the Zymatic, which also happens to be half the price.

Whereas the Zymatic was originally geared towards experienced brewers, the Pico has been designed with the hobbyist in mind. The latest gadget employs much of the same technology as its older and bigger sibling, but with reduced complexity and cost. Ideal for any countertop, the Pico itself measures only 12 inches wide and is capable of producing five liters of fresh beer after a single brewing session. That size is more along the lines of a coffee-maker than a microwave.

One notable feature of the Pico is the its new PicoPak system, which includes conveniently pre-packaged ingredient combinations (ranging from award-winning porters to Munich malts) from craft breweries throughout the world. These may be purchased and customized to taste. All the user has to do is fill a keg with water, load the hop and grain modules with the pre-packaged goods, and hit “brew.” Once it’s done, the beer is fermented by adding yeast from the PicoPak, and then transferred over to a mini keg where it stays for five to seven days to carbonate.

What’s more, PicoBrew recently launched a PicoBrew BrewMarketplace, which allows any brewer to publish their beer ingredient combination and earn royalties on every sale. Meanwhile, customers can find great craft beer by exploring ratings and recommendations and even communicating directly with the brewer.

Earlier this year, the company also introduced its second product, KegSmarts — a Wi-Fi unit that attaches to a standard kegerator and provides information, like temperature and quantity, on an OLED display — all of which can be monitored and controlled from a mobile device.

Ready to brew your own personalized craft beer? Head over to Pico’s Kickstarter campaign, where the PicoBrew crew is currently seeking $200,000. Delivery is slated for April 2016.

This intelligent alarm clock is the perfect bedside companion

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Beddi is a next-generation smart alarm clock that helps you start your day off more easily and efficiently.

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Mornings are hectic. They start off rough with the blaring sound of your alarm, most likely coming from the unpleasant preset tones programmed in your phone. But the biggest challenge is actually getting up, which is even more difficult when you didn’t have a good night’s sleep. Then you have to worry about leaving the house on time, hoping the traffic isn’t too bad. By the time you’re out of the door, you’ve realized you didn’t have enough time for your morning cup ‘o joe. If only there was a way to make the early hours of your day not so bad…

Meet Beddi, an app-enabled alarm clock and Bluetooth speaker that includes over 20 features to make your morning and evening routines flow easily. Developed by Los Angeles-based startup Witti, Beddi boasts a minimalistic design and perfectly complements any home. The gadget combines all the elements you’d typically expect from a smart alarm clock, along with a Bluetooth speaker, USB charging hub, a night light and even a white noise generator to offset loud environment. It also has the capabilities to connect to your devices with its three smart buttons, allowing you to control things around your home with just one click. Each button has three modes, single click, double click and long press, giving you a total of nine different commands.

Not only does Beddi automatically sync with your phone through its accompanying iOS and Android app, it’s super simple to configure, intuitive to use and lets you set multiple alarms. You can turn out of bed to your favorite Spotify playlist as your morning alarm, along with a wake up light, and have dashboard display and voice announcement for weather and traffic updates. With its Google Maps integration, you’ll periodically receive alerts for your morning commute, informing you when you need to leave to arrive to work on time. To ease the hustle and bustle with city living, Beddi can even summon an Uber for you with nothing more than a push of a smart button.

And when it’s time to hit the hay, the unit is equipped with a white noise generator to keep you snoozing soundly through the night. Beyond that, you can set your own Spotify station or choose from a default selection of sounds, such as the subtle noise of a fan, the crashing of ocean waves or the chirping of wildlife in a forest, to help you drift off to sleep. As you catch some Zs, an integrated timer will turn off the sound after a predefined time period.

If you’re not impressed yet, then maybe this will do the trick. Since it knows your sleep habits, when you wake up and go to sleep, Beddi can automatically regulate your smart appliances. With its customizable and programmable smart buttons, Beddi can start your coffee machine, adjust your Nest thermostat or Philips Hue lights, send a text message and make a phone or Skype call. The best part? You can do this all without ever leaving the room or reach for another device. Heck, Beddi might as well be your new butler!

Beddi employs classic Bluetooth for its high quality sound and music, while Bluetooth 4.0 to pair with your phone. Additionally, the nightstand accessory comes with an auxiliary jacks and two USB ports for charging tablets. Unlike other docks, with Beddi you won’t have the annoying problem of your phone not fitting in the dock with its case. The 17mm slot will fit most cases, and is compatible with iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s+, as well as Galaxy S4, S6 and other 5.5″ screens.

Looking for the perfect bedside companion? Head over to Beddi’s Kickstarter campaign, where the Witti team has already surpassed its goal of $25,000. Pending all goes to plan, delivery is expected for June 2016.

Sun-believable! Sol Chip powers the IoT 24/7 with solar energy

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Sol Chip’s IoT platform provides low-power communication module, with self-sustaining solar energy technology.

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The Internet of Things calls for a lot of wireless devices, which in turn require wireless connection and power in order to operate. Typically speaking, wireless gadgetry is powered predominantly by batteries with limited life expectancy that inevitably deplete over time and need replacement. If we can get these devices to communicate with each other without the inconvenience of wires and installations, why can’t we do the same when it comes to powering them? Luckily, one company has already thought of a solution.

Meet Sol Chip — an Israeli startup that specializes in energy harvesting and communication platforms solutions for the IoT — who has created a power management unit that yields light energy to supply continuous and sustainable energy and communication of sensors’ data. The Sol Chip Com (SCC-M433) is a new autonomous monitoring platform that will eliminate the need to carry out maintenance procedures performed on battery-operated systems. Operable in sunlight and low-light environments, the batteries are a result of the cross pollination of solar cell and microchip technologies.

Not surprisingly, Sol Chip is driven by Atmel’s extremely low-powered MCUs (ATXmega32D3 and ATXmega32E5) in each of its various products. Specifically, the SCC-M433 features a solar battery with more than 10 years of maintenance-free operation, a network of wireless mesh nodes for coverage ranging up to 1,500 meters and 433Mdz radio frequency for outdoor applications.

Based on a patented IP, SCC-M433 integrates all required components into a single unit to operate 24 hours a day during summer and winter. Once an analog or digital sensor is connected the SCC-M433, data can be transferred to the cloud, allowing a user to keep tabs on and analyze the information. Sol Chip’s technology utilizes a low-cost manufacturing flow, thereby increasing overall efficiency while reducing operation costs by 60%.

“Extreme low-power microcontrollers enable us to design new cutting edge technology and be the leaders in our industry,” explains Dr. Shani Keysar, Sol Chip’s founder and CEO.

The product design was initially derived from a smart irrigation system that enabled growers to achieve higher yields, while diminishing the amount of water, cutting resource consumption and decreasing costs. Sol Chip’s more recent technology can easily fit other use cases where wireless mesh network is necessary, such as smart cities, structural health monitoring and asset tracking.

Intrigued? You can check out Sol Chip’s solar batteries and various applications here.

Adafruit makes a smartphone-activated talking dog collar

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Have some fun at the park with this Up-like dog collar.   

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Inspired by Dug the dog from the Pixar movie Up, Adafruit’s Becky Stern and Phillip Burgess have created a talking collar of their own. Whereas the special contraption from the animated film allowed the pup to communicate with its owner, or more like gives voice to his thoughts, this smartphone-activated wearable lets you have some fun at the park by emitting pre-programmed phrases like “Squirrel!,” “I can smell you,” or “I want that ball!”

Built around the Adafruit’s Audio FX board and Bluefruit Micro (ATmega32U4), the Bluetooth-enabled collar’s sounds are triggered using the Bluefruit LE Connect mobile app. These noises are then played through a mono amp connected to a mini speaker. Meanwhile, the collar itself is made out of a leather belt, along with 3D-printed “greebles” to give it the true look and feel of Dug’s.

You’ll also notice that the device has two LED sequins — one for the faux map screen that stays on all the time, another that acts as a ‘talking’ light and is prompted with each phone command. The first is sliced from the battery pack, while the latter is attached to an analog out on the Bluefruit Micro.

The electronics are housed inside a round pouch on the front of the wearable, while its battery pack lives in the faux tracking box in the back. The unit is powered by three AAA batteries.

So, does this sound like something you’d like for your dog… or for yourself? Head over to Adafruit’s site, where you’ll find an exhaustive breakdown with the schematics, code and even 3D files for the harder-to-find bits.

[Images: Mike Farino via Adafruit]

Building a crowdsourced, decentralized IoT network around the world

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The Things Network is a low-barrier way to get started with smart city projects. 

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When it comes to which kind of wireless network will be the go-to choice for the Internet of Things, the jury is still out: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 4G LTE, 5G, 802.15.4, the possibilities go on and on. And pending experiments underway in Amsterdam go as planned, don’t be surprised to find LoRaWAN as a frontrunner on that growing list. For those uninitiated with the technology, LoRaWAN is a wide area network that boasts low battery, low bandwidth and long-range wireless communication. It enables things to talk to the Internet without the need for 3G, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth — meaning, no codes, heavy battery consumption or monthly subscriptions necessary.

This long-range WAN is a practical suitor for smart city and M2M applications, as seen throughout the Dutch capital. In this particular case, Amsterdam has tapped the open IoT data network, The Things Network. Due to its seven-mile reach and affordability, the non-profit organization has been able to cover the entire city with only 10 gateways. And unlike other similar municipality projects, this one was entirely crowdsourced and implemented in a matter of six weeks with help from third parties, such as the Port of Amsterdam, The Next Web, KPMG, Deloitte, Peerby and Trakkies. 

There is, however, one minor speed bump on the road to a distributed, citizen-owned service: each of the currently available LoRaWAN gateways cost around $1,200, which isn’t so great for global scalability. Cognizant of this, The Things Network decided to launch a Kickstarter campaign offering a consumer-friendly base station with a price tag that’s only one-fifth of other products currently on the market.

“The Internet was created by people that connected their networks and allowed traffic from, to and over their servers and cables to pass for free. As a result, there was abundant data communication and exponential innovation. The Things Network is doing the same for the Internet of Things by creating abundant data connectivity. So applications and businesses can flourish,” the team explains.

The community-led initiative is hoping to make it easier for those looking to set up their own networks thanks to three new pieces of hardware: The Things Gateway, The Things Uno and The Things Node. The Things Gateway is at the core of it all. This small, simple-to-install gadget acts as the router between the things and the Internet. Not only does it link to your Wi-Fi or Ethernet connection, it runs open hardware, uses GPS to determine its location and the node’s whereabouts later, and serves up to 10,000 nodes.

Meanwhile, The Thing Uno is like an Arduino Uno but with LoRaWAN capabilities. This lets you upgrade your existing Arduino projects by making wireless with a several mile radius. Compatible with existing shields and the Arduino IDE, the board includes connections for an optional external antenna on the breakout circuit to better optimize the range. What’s more, The Things Network is collaborating with 3D Hubs to make a customizable 3D-printable enclosure for your Uno.

But that’s not all. The Thing Node is a keyring remote equipped with sensors (movement, light and temperature), an RGB LED, a button and three AAA batteries, all housed inside a waterproof shell. This “matchbox of sensors” can be integrated with your IFTTT account, as well as employed to devise your own low-cost prototypes applications for a Things Network in your town. Example use cases span from bike finders and pet trackers to smart doorbells and security systems, and so far, teams in Boston, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Cape Town, Kochi, Sydney and Manchester have all begun actively pursuing projects.

Interested? Head over to The Thing Network’s Kickstarter campaign, where the foundation is currently seeking $170,036. Delivery is slated for July 2016.