Wimoto Launches "Motes": Tiny Sensors

Wimoto, Tiny sensors let smartphone users monitor their homes

Wimoto, situated in Markham, Ontario, Canada, Wimoto Technologies Inc. develops innovative technology products that help people improve their comfort, conserve energy and water, save money and protect the things they love.

Wimoto Motes are tiny (about the size of a stack of five quarters,  a mere 30 x 30 x 8 mm (1.2 x 1.2 x 0.3 inch) in size) weatherproof sensors that can be stuck unobtrusively just about anywhere. They operate for up to a year on a single battery and wirelessly. Sensors use Bluetooth SMART, and so should be able to communicate with devices up to a range of 30 m (100 ft).

Wimoto's range of sensors is designed to report data to iOS and Android devices and computers installed with either OS X or Linux (with the Raspberry Pi singled out with a special mention). There is also a toolkit allowing owners of computers with Bluetooth 4.0 support to write their own software for them.

Ranging from moisture, temperature and humidity sensing to infrared and motion triggers, the Motes offer low-maintenance, long-lived sensor technology. 

Marc Nicholas, Wimoto and Chief Technology Officer and creator of Motes, said "I originally got the idea due to my interest in gardening. But when my son was born, I wanted to monitor the temperature and humidity in his bedroom overnight for health reasons, and I was surprised to find no low-cost, simple iPhone solution existed." Nicholas demonstrated a prototype of the gardening sensor at Toronto's Mini Maker Faire in 2011, and left his job in financial services earlier this year to concentrate on the venture full-time.

Among the sensors on offer are a Climote, which measures precision ambient temperature, humidity and light light level sensor data(monitors your wine cellar, humidor, baby's bedroom, the inside of your refrigerator, or even weather conditions outside.); a Growmote, which tracks soil temperature and moisture(home on a lawn, in a vegetable garden, or indoors with potted plants); and a Thermote non-contact thermometer (which Wimoto suggests could be used to track the temperature of, say, in a hot tub, swimming pool, or aquarium) . There's also a Watermote which Wimoto claims can monitor water levels, and a Securimote with a built in infrared motion detector.

climote

Growmote

Securimote

All Motes store sensor data in their onboard memory for up to a week when the mobile device is absent, and can be configured to send alerts when thresholds are crossed. A cloud-based upload service will be launched in the Fall that will allow owners to access their data from any web browser and analyze it.

Sensors which monitor weather, soil conditions (for the green fingered) and water levels are available for under US$40 each, and are due to hit doormats this September.

With less than 3 days on the clock, the Wimoto campaign is a mere sniff away from its $100,000 stretch goal which would make the interval and duration of logging configurable.

WIMOTO'S MOTES USES:

Wimoto Motes Uses

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Write by: RC - Tuesday, July 9, 2013