
Ask HN: Object you'd like to see connected to the internet? - shervinshaikh
There is all this talk about the &quot;Internet of Things&quot; and how it&#x27;s going to be one of the largest industries soon.<p>So I&#x27;m curious, what is something around you that you wish was connected to the internet(ex: Physical mailbox at home&#x2F;work, desk chair, etc)? Or is there a product out that that you wish was improved(ex: smart lights, internet connected cars, etc)?<p>This devices can have sensors or actuators, but I want to know why you believe it&#x27;ll make your life easier by connecting it to the internet.
======
byoung2
Technology is getting so cheap that eventually we'll have everything connected
and wonder why it wasn't always that way.

First, I'd like my sprinkler system connected so I can see and adjust the
schedule, check current soil moisture levels, etc. Better yet, let the system
adjust itself based on current conditions, forecasts, etc. I would use this
mainly for my vegetable garden, not so much fo

Second, I'd like my refrigerator to track and record historical internal
temperature. The fridge should be below 40 degrees at all times for food
safety, and I have a thermometer inside that is 40 or below whenever I look at
it, but recently I went home during the day when it was 96 degrees outside,
and I saw that the temperature in the fridge was almost 50. It cooled back
down in the evening, so if I hadn't gone home to check I would never have
known.

Cars are getting more connected (particularly GM cars with OnStar). File this
under "obvious" but new GM cars will have an 8 device LTE hotspot built in
that is on whenever the car is. My brother has an Escalade and he has an app
that can tell him stats about the car like tire pressure, etc. It would be
nice if every car had this feature.

It would be nice to have more data about water usage inside the house, so I'd
like a sensor on every water fixture. It wouldn't be too difficult in theory
to add a meter at every water supply line and have that connect to WiFi or
Bluetooth to report hot and cold water usage. It would be interesting to know
that the dishwasher used 15% of the water, while the showers use 36%. I'm not
sure it would be super useful, but definitely cool to see.

~~~
jchrisa
I've been enjoying the Parrot Flower Power. It's just a sensor you stick in
your plants. It's connected to a database of plants so it can give you advice
based on sunlight, water, soil chemistry, and temperature, depending on what
kind of plant you select.

~~~
eps
Wa-a-ay to expensive. It needs to be in an under-$10 range to be feasible for
reasonably practical use.

------
JasonFruit
Nothing but my computers. I don't want anything that affects my real, physical
life to be open to trickery. Imagine having someone checking what is in your
mailbox, what your waking hours are, how much weight you've gained, where you
drove last night — it's not worth it to gain a little convenience.

~~~
falcolas
I agree with this, but I'd word it differently:

Anything that gets wired to the internet is done so with the user's safety and
privacy as the first concern.

If it's possible to leak PII about the user to an unintended third party, it
shouldn't be done. As JasonFruit says; the cost isn't worth the convenience.

------
eps
A big neon sign that says "I am on the Internet of Things" that would flash
every time it gets an ICMP ping and do nothing else. This would capture nicely
the essence and general usefulness of an average IoT device :)

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Ha. This.

I led a project to connect my company's products (large, instrumentation
devices) to the 'net a few years ago to improve serviceability, tell us when
things are wrong, let customers order supplies, etc. It was a big success and
I've been following the field for a while. Subscribed to the appropriate
magazines, follow industry trends, get asked IoT questions from LinkedIn, etc.

I _still_ don't see much purpose for consumer devices to be connected. Big
industrial machinery: sure. Obvious benefits there. But my fridge being out of
something? My oven timer went off? Why?

------
shrike
My fridge. A simple barcode reader I can scan an item with when I use the last
of it. We could develop applications that add it to a offline or online
shipping list, track the amount of 'item' we eat every month, our spend etc.

We could complicate things a bit more with two barcode readers, one when we
add an item to the fridge, another when it's empty. That would let us find
recipes based on what's available in the fridge or even what's available and
likely to expire soon.

Barcode readers everywhere! Extend the same idea to the pantry, under the
sinks, etc.

This is the closest I've seen to date -
[https://fresh.amazon.com/dash/](https://fresh.amazon.com/dash/)

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
I keep hearing about this idea, but most of the stuff in my fridge doesn't
have a barcode. Either it never did (fruit, veggies), or it's worn off or the
external packaging was removed. And then there's the fact that I don't always
want the same thing (out of Smucker's strawberry jam, but want Minnesota State
Fair Cherry preserves (mmmmm) to replace it).

Still don't get the appeal.

~~~
hacknat
I agree completely. When people talk about the fridge idea I've always
scratched my head about it. First of all a good chunk of my food never sees
the inside of the fridge. I would also add that the vast majority of items we
"run out" of we end up not replacing, at least consistently. I consistently
replace only a small amount of the food I consume (milk, butter, bread), and I
suspect others are similar.

I'm sure I have some patterns in my eating habits, but it's an area of my life
I'm constantly trying to randomize (i.e. try new things). I would also add
that seasonality plays a huge role, both in what is available and cheap, which
a computer could track, but my own desire for changes. I went through a cheese
"phase" last year where I tried lots of different cheeses, but I don't really
eat too much cheese anymore. Now I'm in a Bourbon phase.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Which is, if I may add, an excellent phase to be in :-)

------
ericfranklin
Traffic lights. While not directly personal or "Internet of Things", traffic
lights could really use some AI. It would be fantastic if they could learn
routine traffic patterns (rush hour, weekends), detect flow (green light, but
no one is there), even receive traffic data from Google/Apple/etc., then
automatically adjust timing accordingly. Even mesh networking with nearby
intersections.

I can't count the number of times I have been waiting at a red left turn
light, with a green straight light and no other cars around. Or, backed up at
a red light with no cross traffic, yet cross traffic has a long green.

It is probably a complex problem to solve and suspect the biggest barriers are
bureaucracy and control. Is there anyone on here that works with traffic
lights? It seems like they are setup once with a predefined timing and are
rarely ever changed.

~~~
Mister_Snuggles
This already happens in some cities. There are traffic lights in my city, for
example, which adjust for trains, presence of cross-traffic, etc. The cross-
traffic one is neat because a light will, quite literally, stay red forever
and only change when a car pulls up to actually use the green light.

From this[0] article:

> Today, cities use computer-controlled traffic lights that adjust their
> timing based on traffic levels, the time of day and even the number of
> trucks on the road. In Los Angeles, for example, city officials use traffic
> management to control their 4,400 traffic lights, reducing travel time by 12
> percent.

[0] [http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2014/08/05/high-tech-traffic-
lig...](http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2014/08/05/high-tech-traffic-lights-could-
reshape-future-driving/)

~~~
wlesieutre
My hometown had one of those "cross-traffic" lights a few blocks from my house
at an intersection that I had to cross to reach one of the major bike paths.

Naturally, it didn't register bikes. So if you wanted the light to ever
change, you had to cross over to the left side of the street, go up on the
sidewalk, and push the pedestrian button (no crosswalk on the right side of
the intersection). Not much of a fan.

I'm not saying they're always bad, but they're not always good either. Maybe
newer ones have improved on detection, but my understanding was that the
sensor was induction based and required a big chunk of metal in order to spot
you.

~~~
maxerickson
If the sensor there is an induction loop you might be able to figure out where
it is and line a wheel up well enough that the metal rim triggers it.

~~~
fredophile
Probably not. From my experience bicycles and small motorcycles will not
trigger the sensor on the induction loop.

~~~
maxerickson
I looked around some before I posted that. This article seems respectable
enough and at least supports the idea that bikes are intended to be able to
trigger some of them:

[http://bikeportland.org/2010/09/27/bike-science-making-
sense...](http://bikeportland.org/2010/09/27/bike-science-making-sense-out-of-
signal-sensors-39517)

~~~
fredophile
It looks like those are specifically designed to be triggered by bikes. I've
been at intersections with a 50-100cc motorcycle that would not trigger the
light.

~~~
maxerickson
I have the idea that they are broadly intended to work for bikes and the like
but that they aren't always installed or tuned correctly.

------
ww520
Cars. I'd like to turn on the AC afar remotely 15 minutes or half hour before
get into the car on a hot day, or heat it up remotely on a freezing day. Some
might already be doing it (Tesla).

Watering system. It can look up the season/weather and adjust the amount of
water to sprinkle.

Battery. So that it can send out a signal when it's low on power. I know it's
probably impractical but we are talking about ideas for the future.

Credit card/smart cash card. Yes, I want to look up balance/transactions,
transfer money, and be alerted on charges on the card itself with the screen
and network on it.

~~~
viraptor
Some cars already use the electric heating automatically when you unlock the
doors remotely. It just blasts hot air and heats up the seat quickly. I think
the latest prius does it, but I may be wrong here.

~~~
ww520
But key fob needs to be nearby and almost getting into the car. I was thinking
doing it in the office remotely 5 to 10 minutes before leaving. Cooling a car
takes some times.

~~~
byoung2
My brother's car (Cadillac Escalade) has remote starting through an Android
app, and you can adjust the climate control through the app as well.

------
cordite
This might seem rather silly, but what if toilets were connected?

I don't mean just stall availability, but rather for a health reason. Japan,
about 5-7 years ago or so, made some smart toilet that could tell what your
diet is from the stool. What if with similar technology, individuals could be
warned for slow or immediate changes based on similarly obtained data points?

Individuals with certain diseases can have immediate preventative care and
also prevent transmission of those diseases.

------
theoutlander
Reading all the suggestions here sparks my interest in an idea I was tinkering
with last year after I moved into a big house and I wanted to monitor and
control everything through the web / phone app. In addition, I wanted useful
stats about everything (a lot were mentioned in this thread). The main problem
I was trying to address was building a centralized system that would
communicate with devices built on different protocols (Zigbee, ZWave,
Bluetooth, etc.) and allow them to communicate with each other via the central
controller.I started to work on it, but got caught up deciphering various
protocols and have been trying to validate the idea before venturing further
into it. I hate the idea of owning several independent systems and want
something that's unified - at least as far as monitoring goes. It sounds like
there is a need for smarter homes. I would love such a unified system at home.
I've also considered creating hardware to facilitate certain use-cases.

If anyone wants to collaborate on this, it would be fantastic! I was planning
on making it open-source and free for home use. It wouldn't be a bad idea to
simply solve some of the use-cases for folks on HN.

~~~
shervinshaikh
I think the AllSeen Alliance is trying to do something similar with AllJoyn
([https://allseenalliance.org/developer-resources/alljoyn-
open...](https://allseenalliance.org/developer-resources/alljoyn-open-source-
project)). They want to create a standard communication protocol across a
variety of devices and operating systems. Currently they only support mobile
devices and computers, but I think their overall goal is to support
everything.

~~~
theoutlander
That's interesting. I'm trying it out. I suppose if it does what I need, I
could focus on building a unified home automation system.

------
wsinks
It's not adding things to the internet that excites me, it's the context you
can put into them as well.

For instance, right now I move between work in San Jose, my parents house, and
my SF house. The context and control changes in each place - my family, my
roommates, my corporate policy and teammates.

I generally don't care about connecting things to the internet unless those
things are also taken care of. I just need a couple knobs to turn.

------
cdcox
I don't know about connected to the internet, but it would nice to have more
built in sensors in an oven/stove. They have digital thermometers, but it
would be nice to get a total IR/temperature profile of what's inside. Maybe
some basic computer vision programs. Something like 'looks like your bread is
done and its temperature is correct, we'll turn the over down automatically
unless you issue an override'. Perhaps even better would be a smart microwave
that detects temperature unevenness with some IR setup and adjusts it's
internal plate/heating mechanism to compensate.

I guess the internety aspect would be, people could upload ideal
cooking/completion settings to achieve certain results. Or it could let you
start food up as you are approaching home, but this would lead to some food
borne pathogen issues, so it's probably not a good plan.

Though really this might be a bit excessive.

~~~
joezydeco
I think a lot of people would love something simple that just let you know
that all the burners are off on the stove. Ever get that nagging feeling when
you're 10 minutes away from home? Same for the iron.

------
ErikRogneby
I would love for my breaker panel to be smart. Knowing the power draw of
different breakers and being able to trend those. Analytics could alert me to
a slowly failing compressor on my fridge or a burnt out element in my hot
water tank.

Lots of other cool features that could come with a smart panel a well.

~~~
ktsmith
I'd take that a step further and put a sensor on every outlet so it would be
like a built in kill a watt that you could look at from a household level,
circuit level, and then socket level. You could monitor and alert on things
that are suddenly using more or less power and also determine where you are
losing the most energy to unused or seldom used devices that are always on.

~~~
ChuckMcM
This is something I've looked at. When outlets with built in USB charging
ports came out I thought, "Gee it would be much nicer if they used some form
of powerline networking to tell the house server how much power they are
supplying."

------
swah
Its "small stuff", but if many objects in my house published their state and
events, I could do lots of little things, insignificant as "no need to check
the mailbox because the little door was not opened today".

------
macguyver
Our refrigerator. It is big and things easily go bad if we don't periodically
go through and do an "inventory" of what's there, what needs to be eaten.

A fridge should, ideally: Track counts of objects, Have date of entry of
objects, Have a freshness meter for all objects, and give me a map of the
location of each object.

I have in mind how to visually display this info and have R&D insights to
other ways to make this practical. Lots of innovation :)

------
dxgray
All devices that contain time of day displays. I live in 800 square feet and
with appliances, clocks, etc. There can be 4 minutes difference across 25
feet.

~~~
falcolas
Appropriate quote:

A man with one watch will always know the time, A man with two watches will
always be in doubt.

------
jo_
My front door, the buzzer, and maybe the door to my room and the lights. It
would be nice if UPS ringing my doorbell sent an SMS to my phone so I could
remotely unlock it. That way they can put the package inside my gate or front
door, and I'll relock both after departure (which I can verify via webcam). No
more arriving at 7:00 AM so I can leave at 3:00 PM to pick up a package.

~~~
uptown
Seems like this guy accomplished exactly that with existing tech:
[https://twitter.com/adster/status/496321109789519872](https://twitter.com/adster/status/496321109789519872)

------
ryanSrich
Just to name a few:

\- Stove

\- Cat feeder

\- Sink

\- ...actually pretty much everything in my kitchen

\- Selectable thoughts

\- A physical notebook

\- All restaurant ordering systems. So I can get the check right to my phone,
pay with my phone, tip with my phone. No paper checks.

\- City streets. So I can get real time data when I'm biking that tells me a
certain road is closed or if traffic is heavy. I know this exists with Google
maps but I'm talking about having the physical streets connected so the data
is real time.

~~~
shervinshaikh
Can you elaborate on selectable thoughts?

------
sadkingbilly
A sump-pump that sends an email when it detects water and/or runs. Would be
great if it included a humidity measurement too.

------
YetAnotherBozo
Eh, I think that for the near term, the internet of _things_ is on the ropes.
I think nobody's buying arduino or beaglebone, raspberry pi, etc. books any
more. I think plenty of people bought one gizmo and a book, and now it's
sitting in a drawer somewhere.

------
terhechte
My plants, so they can tell me when they're thirsty, need more sun, need less
sun, hungry (i.e. minerals + water), whether they have a bug, whether the room
is too hot, too cold, or whether the room is too humid, or not humid enough.

~~~
Xlythe
Doesn't do quite everything, but it is a start:

[http://www.parrot.com/flowerpower/us](http://www.parrot.com/flowerpower/us)

------
xyclos
I want coasters at the bar to be connected, so the bartender gets a
notification that I'm in need of another drink. (but not the cups themselves,
that would be ridiculous)

------
apolymath
SLR cameras, drones, cats... anything that records video, photos, or audio,
and any kind of sensor, so that the data can be instantly uploaded or even
streaming at all times.

------
fakeasaur
Automated trucking would be cool to see in my lifetime, but to be honest the
idea makes me really uncomfortable because it would put roughly two million
people out of work.

~~~
freehunter
Every time you think or hear "it would be nice to make this more efficient,
but it would put people out of work", think of discussions surrounding
universal basic income. If the only reason for having humans behind the wheel
is because those people have no other way to make money, maybe it's time to
face the fact that we don't need them to make money. Take their job but keep
paying them the same, and the benefits from not having them on the road (they
won't get in accidents, won't need to stop and sleep, will be free to pursue
other things to enhance their and their family's lives) will still ensure that
the economy benefits.

It's not just truckers, but forklift drivers, cab drivers, nurse assistants,
any other job that can be replaced by a robot. There should _never_ be a
situation where we are putting people to work or putting people in danger for
no reason other than so we feel comfortable paying them to do poorly what a
robot can do perfectly.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I'm reminded of my friend Ben, who has a PhD in Physics and drives a bus.
Please, please put Ben out of the bus-driving business, if it means a basic
income so he can do physics, or teach physics. This current economy is a
waste, that demands smart people do stupid work so they can eat, instead of
doing smart work that would enhance us all.

------
Meai
I'd like a sticker that I can stick on things and find wirelessly / via gps /
some other method so that I never lose things again.

~~~
wahooligan
Check out Tile ([http://www.thetileapp.com/](http://www.thetileapp.com/)) and
StickNFind ([https://www.sticknfind.com/](https://www.sticknfind.com/)).

------
terjeto
Our brains so we can communicate quickly and remote without noice polluting
the environment.

------
terjeto
Lawnmover so i can remotely control it from afar (or just read stats if its a
bot)

------
terjeto
Battery levels on all my batteries (tv remote, wireless mouse, flashlight ..)

------
contingencies
Sexual organs. Enough said.

~~~
ww520
Toys you meant.

------
dees
It would make sense for me to be able to preheat my oven or stovetop remotely.
Going all the way into the kitchen and back just to flip a switch and to come
back and wait for 5 minutes seems insane these days. Things that could be
dangerous like these would need additional sensors and safeguards against
forgetfulness or deliberate exploitation, of course, but with this topic we're
talking about a next-gen stack of technology instead of a Ben Franklin coil in
a box with a knob. I believe the reason these things have not already been
tackled (at least not for the mass-market) is that the production costs are
disproportionately high compared with consumer demand for those small
conveniences, considering most of these types of devices already do not need
frequent replacement or upgrade, and are prohibitively expensive for a lot of
households in the first place.

My laundry machines and dishwasher are relatively smart appliances, but again,
it's needlessly wasteful to have to remember to walk all the way across my
house to check on their progress instead of just receiving a notification when
they are done, and being able to view their usage and performance stats on a
dashboard somewhere to make better decisions about how and when to use them.
It'd be nice to be able to load up each machine and let it decide when to
begin its cycles based on how full it is and with delayed timing to optimize
for the lowest cost electricity.

A refrigerator that can track the weight and volume of its contents and help
maintain a shopping list is something we've talked about having for decades,
but none has ever been successful yet. I'm not suggesting this is easy
functionality to solve for, but perhaps thinking about it in different ways
would help. What if each compartment were operated independently and could do
more than just maintain a cool temp? Maybe a box that controls temp all the
way from freezing to roasting as well as humidity. It could take your dishes
prepped for cooking the night before and go ahead and heat them up to be ready
to eat at the appropriate time, with no second manual process needed. It could
double as a dehydrator, and maybe even keep track of when things will expire
and pre-emptively dry them to avoid waste. If this were a stackable thing big
enough to fit a big turkey or a pizza inside, I could imagine having several
of them stacked or spread out instead of the traditional fridge/freezer combo
box that can only be installed in one place in my house, and is hard to access
under/behind for maintenance.

Speaking of maintenance, if we're already adding some small general-purpose
computer to each of these things, why not have them all self-contain operation
and maintenance manuals, and politely remind when they are due for some
cleaning or repairs? Most of these devices don't need to have a built in
display, but instead should be managed via a web page or connected software on
a phone, tablet, or other PC. I think it'd be pretty nice to open a general-
purpose smartphone app and within a few taps get a step-by-step illustrated
guide on how to properly replace some part or do routine cleaning on any of my
dozens of household devices. The next step beyond that is to even be able to
order the replacement parts or 3D-print them locally from the same app.

What I'm especially interested in at the moment is aquaponic/aeroponic
household gardening/farming and how to assemble a reasonably small and self-
contained low-to-zero maintenance system that just tells me when to add food
or chemicals and when individual plants/fish are ideal for harvest. I've been
playing around with a Back to the Roots Aqua Farm, which is just a simple
Betta fish tank with an integrated herb garden system on top, where the fish
feeds the plants and the plants keep the water clean. This is really just a
lower-hassle way of keeping a small fish, but the same principle works for
larger setups with edible fish and plants and there are a lot of "everything
you need to get started" kits out there but I have yet to see a true "open
box, add water, insert fish and seeds" package other than this one, and of
course it's extremely dumb as far as self-maintenance goes, the only real
benefit being that you have a fish tank that doesn't need to be manually
cleaned as often. A more sophisticated setup would involve timed pumping, grow
lights, and autonomously administered food and maintenance chemicals, where
really all you have to do is harvest and replace the plants and fish, and keep
re-filling the stockpiles of whatever food and other additives are needed to
keep everything in optimal health. I'd be really interested in buying such a
setup in some type of one-box form-factor, and I think that such a thing may
really be the future of sustainable agriculture. Something where I install the
thing and simply extract food from it, and the pool guy can handle the
periodic cleaning and re-supply that it requires.

------
MrZongle2
Vladimir Putin's shock collar.

------
fla
Not my door-lock !

------
joewalnes
Hulk Hogan

------
Fjrjcjsiwbfcnde
Oh boy! Now I can live out my 1984 fantasies where not only am I carrying a
tracking device at all times, but literally everything around me is bugged
with sensors!

People being able to assassinate me with a software update to my car is also a
major plus.

