“Beware your surroundings.”
A lesson drilled into our heads since early childhood — but one we rarely heed as adults.
Here to keep us on notice: MicroBot Sense.
About the size and shape of a macaron, the just-launched Sense comes to us from Naran, creators of the MicroBot Push, a finger-shaped device that makes dumb devices smart.
This new sensor, when paired with a smartphone app, measures atmospheric variables such as temperature, humidity, noise level, relative air pressure, light intensity, moisture, brightness and CO2 levels.
It’s also an IFTTT (If This, Then That) device, so it can be programmed to interact with your other smart devices (Hue, WeMo, Logitech Harmoney, etc.) and AI assistants (“Alexa, ask MicroBot to check the baby room condition”). “Sense can be a great trigger in IFTTT,” says Naran founder Terence Park. “If there’s no light in a room, Sense could trigger IFTTT to turn on the light automatically. Or if the room is too dry, it could turn on the humidifier.”
As time goes on, the app will send you push notifications with recommendations and alerts (if the temperature drops to a certain level or a door is opened, for example). It’ll also tracks less scrutable changes in your environment over time.
If you pair it with an additional hub device ($59), you’ll be able to remotely check a room that has a MicroBot from anywhere in the world.
Best of all? Thanks to its tiny size, you can take and measure your surroundings anywhere you go. If you lose it, just use the “Find My MicroBot” GPS feature to hunt it down, Tile-style.
As well, the open-ended device’s capabilities are only going to grow. “In the future, I’d like to see Sense being used to solve more ‘real world’ problems or used to predict various emergency situations, like a seizure, break-in or kidnapping,” says Park.
Available for preorder on Kickstarter, the Sense starts at $45 and ships in July.
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