IocTober Day 10 - Lovers’ secret message buttons “HoneyBunny, can you bring home some milk?” “I miss you Pumpkin, I can’t wait to [CENSORED]” Working couples often like to send each other subtle messages during the day. Personally I keep my phone on silent during most of the work day and check my text messages at idle times, sometimes never. This can lead to missed connections. This little gadget sits on your desk and does nothing other than unobtrusively show pushbuttons with coloured lights.

IocTober Day 9 - Network intrusion detector Many people worry that their IoT devices will be a security risk, particularly cameras. This is a real concern, because many devices are awful. We spend a lot of time at Accelerando evaluating devices and rejecting the awful ones, but even the ones we approve have been subject to “zero day” flaws. We recommend that you don’t keep your IoT devices on the same network as your important data, and we also recommend use of intrusion detection.

IocTober Day 8 - Tea Timer and Reminder Those of us who like tea (particularly my university-student son, Jack) know the frustration of filling the teapot and then forgetting to come back, or pouring a tea, returning to concentration and then finding it cold and hour later. So what can we do here? How about a battery powered sensor that sits atop a teacup or teapot and chirps gently when it reaches drinking temperature?

IocTober Day 7 - Bathroom occupancy display If you’ve worked in a small office with single restrooms, you know the frustration of going to the bathroom only to find it occupied. If you’ve attended a party in someone else’s home you’ve stood outside the bathroom door wondering “Is it occupied? Should I knock?!”. Cyclists looking for an unoccupied shower before work are also often frustrated. My own office has two levels, and the bathroom is right at the back of the lower level, so it is impossible to tell if it is occupied until you have walked some distance.

IocTober Day 6 - Air quality monitoring Today’s IocTober project is about indoor air quality monitoring. This has been a long-term interest of mine, since my wife has debilitating allergies. I was also inspired to think more deeply about the effect of our houses on our health by the work of Brenda, Amber and the team at New Zealand’s Whare Haoura, an organisation that I first encountered in 2017, and which highlights how poorly insulated and ventilated public housing can have a crippling effect on residents, particularly children.

IocTober Day 5 - Marsuipial nesting box occupancy sensors The 5th day of IocTober brings a project that arose from one of the IoTBNE Sunday (mad) Science workshops hosted by Accelerando. SmS attendee “Rob”* (*actually his real name) creates nesting boxes for Wambengers, a native weasel-like marsupial related to Quolls and Dunnarts (Non-Australians, I swear I am not making these names up!). He wanted a way to know if the boxes were occupied, and how frequently the tenants were moving about.

IocTober Day 4 - Solar water heater temperature monitoring We have a solar hot water heater with a gas backup. I always wondered how much effort the solar part contributed in winter. Well, the answer turned out to be “none” because the circulation pump had failed (again), by virtue of fitting a temperature probe under the insulation of the pipework. If you have refrigerators, wine cellars, water heaters or anything where you need to monitor temperature, it’s so easy it’s almost criminal.