Awesome Hardware

There has been a lot of hype with big tech company hardware like Google Glass but as a Tech Geek and Growing developer here are two bits of gadget that has more of my interests.

Spark

I stumble upon this piece of kit when I was browsing the tweets found open source project on a Thermostat and had always been looking for wi-fi sensors to help build a solution to a problem that I sometimes having to double-check if I have left the flat door open or not when leaving in hurry. Wished there was a way I could just text the door to see if the door is Closed 🙂 or Open 😦

I came across spark.io, Spark core which enables you to make hardware available over the  wi-fi. It’s basically a pluggable board similar to set up/DIY required to raspberry pi that allows you to connect hardware like buttons, sensors, switches and other powerful components like Arduino allowing you to create ‘awesome’ (bit cheesy, I know same article title) hacks/projects that can be controlled over the air with a browser on a laptop/mobile.

An example of an awesome project with Spark Core is the Open Source Thermostat that is inspired by the Nest Thermostat (Google acquired nest recently) that can be controlled away from home so when you get back from London’s cold and wet days into cosy warm home. The best thing with this project is that you are in complete control from development to finished product so you add your own little extra twist to it plus its open source.

Leap Motion

Leap Motion is something I have followed since it was on Kickstater project and I can see the piece of kit has grown well in development as the demo video shows off the product making your existing computer system into a hands free controller, strange and funny to look at first sight especially when you know nothing else than physically touching the screen or moving a mouse. Leap motion goes into the same stage as Microsoft’s Xbox Kinect that uses camera sensors.

I can see all sorts of entertaining and productive uses with day-to-day computing with addition of speech.

Those are the two that I will be looking forward to developing and playing with, What do you think you will be using and any other suggestions?