• Home Automation,  iPhone,  Wearable Technology

    A Thermometer For The iPhone

    The practical uses of Wearables and Home Automation never cease to amaze me. I recently added a Kinsa thermometer to my collection of useful toys. This little device uses the 1/8th inch jack like the original Jawbone did. It works like a regular thermometer, but displays temperature on an app that runs on the iPhone. It’s simple to setup and once setup, works the same as any other thermometer. Due to the power of the Internets, you can then select symptoms and check for common ailments that match. You can also look at your history, tracking the rise and fall of your temperature. Overall, a cool little device and a…

  • Home Automation,  Mac OS X,  Minneapolis,  sites

    Control the Weather Using Curl

    Wait, did I say control, I meant query… Sorry to disappoint! I am a home automation nerd. Recently I’ve noticed that as it gets closer to warmer or cooler extremes that it takes longer for my hvac system to bring my house to the temperature I want. I’ve also noticed that NEST claims to automatically learn these factors. Not to be outdone by the Griswolds, I decided to look at building this into my system. I had been experimenting with using the weather.com site to pull this data but then someone pointed out that NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) actually publishes this information on their site. I was…