5 ms·

Umbrella Stand Hack with Rain Alert

31 points by meedabyte 14y ago

calinet6 14y ago
I just want to say, that's a gross overgeneralization. I happen to enjoy rain, and don't believe in umbrellas. I tend to look at people running around in the rain with a sense of curiosity, perplexed at the idea that this fundamental element of life could somehow hurt them; as though it were not an awakening of life—a dance of life upon the dust—springing from the sky.
- meedabyte 14y ago
  amazing point of view. Loved it.
- debacle 14y ago
  Like many things, the rain is great when you don't have obligations. When you do, it's frustrating in many ways.
- RyanMcGreal 14y ago
  Easy for you to say - you're not made of icing sugar. Seriously, though, I have a compact umbrella that fits nicely inside my backpack. I leave it there all the time, so I don't have to worry about whether it's going to rain.
- RickHull 14y ago
  If it's cold out and you're wearing cotton, you're going to have a bad time. If your socks get soaked inside your boots and social conventions do not allow you to remove them, you're going to have a bad time. If you need to travel more than a mile and cannot afford the luxury of a car, you're going to have a bad time. Alternatively, you could bring an umbrella.
- philbarr 14y ago
  You clearly are not a dog walker. Us dog walkers get pretty tired of getting wet all the time, and trying to dry off a wet dog insistent on shaking his soggy hair all over you is extra motivation to make that last 100 yard sprint home when you see a downpour coming...
jgrahamc 14y ago
Fun idea. I like these 'ambient' indicators (I created one that shows me when the next bus is coming: http://blog.jgc.org/2012/03/ambient-bus-arrival-monitor-from-hacked.html http://blog.jgc.org/2012/03/ambient-bus-arrival-monitor-from...).
joxer92 14y ago
Great hack for home automation! It seems easy to implement and install in home.
akaclaudio1 14y ago
amazing hack! I'll copy this project and do it for my house. The umbrella hassle must be solved once forever! :-)
fox91 14y ago
Great! I love it :D
fr0sty 14y ago
When will this sort of thing become affordable? The wireless card is 50GBP+VAT and the board it plugs in to is 20. thats > $150 to control an LED wirelessly which is only a little bit insane. I'd love to throw together little 'internet of things' projects here there and everywhere but the per-unit cost just doesn't allow it.
- Evbn 14y ago
  When 10K people sponsor an kickstarter, it will be under $100 and sold in SkyMall.
- jgrahamc 14y ago
  Well, his whole thing is over engineered. He doesn't need a PIR sensor (the LEDs can just be on all the time), he doesn't need RGB addressable LEDs (he can just connect an LED to a GPIO port with a resistor). He also doesn't need a computer with the power to handle a web server. So, what you need is a machine that has WiFi connectivity plus GPIO plus a few components. I'd suggest that you can do this with a Raspberry Pi plus a small WiFi adapter. Using Amazon.co.uk pricing: Raspberry Pi Model B: £42.89 Raspberry Pi Power Supply: £3.95 Edimax WiFi Adapter: £8.15 Some LEDs + resistors (est.) £2.00 ---------------------------------- £56.99 Which is $90. Of course, if you have any of these things (like an old USB WiFi adapter) you can cut the cost further. Or you can do as I do (see link above) and reuse old equipment. My bus monitoring project was done for the cost of the LED display from SparkFun ($12.95). And the Pi has a lot of power to do other stuff. I have other ambient stuff in my house running off a single Raspberry Pi plus it's doing CCTV motion detection as well.
  - pedrocr 14y ago
    If you have some other machine on which to install a simple daemon you could just use one of these for $35 https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10822 https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10822 It's a low-power WiFi client with a bunch of IO that you can configure to periodically do a TCP call to some server you own to get orders on what to do. If you don't mind having it always on you can invert that and have the server initiate the call. You lose the ultra-low power usage in that case. I've been evaluating it to create sensor/actuator networks and it's been great so far. It also has a serial port so your display example would work as well. It's amazing that a full computer (the raspberrypi) can come so close to this on price but the raspberry is an energy guzzler compared to this and for anything you want to battery power that's a big deal.
bernardom 14y ago
Terrific piece of hack. Anyone know where can I find a similarly transparent umbrella stand?
Flenser 14y ago
I keep my umbrella in my car in the footwell between the seat and the door ... and forget it's there.

31 points by meedabyte 14y ago

I just want to say, that's a gross overgeneralization. I happen to enjoy rain, and don't believe in umbrellas. I tend to look at people running around in the rain with a sense of curiosity, perplexed at the idea that this fundamental element of life could somehow hurt them; as though it were not an awakening of life—a dance of life upon the dust—springing from the sky.

meedabyte 14y ago
amazing point of view. Loved it.
debacle 14y ago
Like many things, the rain is great when you don't have obligations. When you do, it's frustrating in many ways.
RyanMcGreal 14y ago
Easy for you to say - you're not made of icing sugar. Seriously, though, I have a compact umbrella that fits nicely inside my backpack. I leave it there all the time, so I don't have to worry about whether it's going to rain.
RickHull 14y ago
If it's cold out and you're wearing cotton, you're going to have a bad time. If your socks get soaked inside your boots and social conventions do not allow you to remove them, you're going to have a bad time. If you need to travel more than a mile and cannot afford the luxury of a car, you're going to have a bad time. Alternatively, you could bring an umbrella.
philbarr 14y ago
You clearly are not a dog walker. Us dog walkers get pretty tired of getting wet all the time, and trying to dry off a wet dog insistent on shaking his soggy hair all over you is extra motivation to make that last 100 yard sprint home when you see a downpour coming...

jgrahamc 14y ago

Fun idea. I like these 'ambient' indicators (I created one that shows me when the next bus is coming: http://blog.jgc.org/2012/03/ambient-bus-arrival-monitor-from-hacked.html http://blog.jgc.org/2012/03/ambient-bus-arrival-monitor-from...).

joxer92 14y ago

Great hack for home automation! It seems easy to implement and install in home.

akaclaudio1 14y ago

amazing hack! I'll copy this project and do it for my house. The umbrella hassle must be solved once forever! :-)

fox91 14y ago

Great! I love it :D

fr0sty 14y ago

When will this sort of thing become affordable? The wireless card is 50GBP+VAT and the board it plugs in to is 20. thats > $150 to control an LED wirelessly which is only a little bit insane. I'd love to throw together little 'internet of things' projects here there and everywhere but the per-unit cost just doesn't allow it.

Evbn 14y ago
When 10K people sponsor an kickstarter, it will be under $100 and sold in SkyMall.
jgrahamc 14y ago
Well, his whole thing is over engineered. He doesn't need a PIR sensor (the LEDs can just be on all the time), he doesn't need RGB addressable LEDs (he can just connect an LED to a GPIO port with a resistor). He also doesn't need a computer with the power to handle a web server. So, what you need is a machine that has WiFi connectivity plus GPIO plus a few components. I'd suggest that you can do this with a Raspberry Pi plus a small WiFi adapter. Using Amazon.co.uk pricing: Raspberry Pi Model B: £42.89 Raspberry Pi Power Supply: £3.95 Edimax WiFi Adapter: £8.15 Some LEDs + resistors (est.) £2.00 ---------------------------------- £56.99 Which is $90. Of course, if you have any of these things (like an old USB WiFi adapter) you can cut the cost further. Or you can do as I do (see link above) and reuse old equipment. My bus monitoring project was done for the cost of the LED display from SparkFun ($12.95). And the Pi has a lot of power to do other stuff. I have other ambient stuff in my house running off a single Raspberry Pi plus it's doing CCTV motion detection as well.
- pedrocr 14y ago
  If you have some other machine on which to install a simple daemon you could just use one of these for $35 https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10822 https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10822 It's a low-power WiFi client with a bunch of IO that you can configure to periodically do a TCP call to some server you own to get orders on what to do. If you don't mind having it always on you can invert that and have the server initiate the call. You lose the ultra-low power usage in that case. I've been evaluating it to create sensor/actuator networks and it's been great so far. It also has a serial port so your display example would work as well. It's amazing that a full computer (the raspberrypi) can come so close to this on price but the raspberry is an energy guzzler compared to this and for anything you want to battery power that's a big deal.

bernardom 14y ago

Terrific piece of hack. Anyone know where can I find a similarly transparent umbrella stand?

Flenser 14y ago

I keep my umbrella in my car in the footwell between the seat and the door ... and forget it's there.