Former Yahoo Employee Hacks His House to Have Its Own Twitter Feed
Former Yahoo employee and current co-founder of Product Club, Tom Coates hacked his own house in San Francisco in order to remotely monitor it via Twitter.
Sounds a bit strange at first read but the reason his house would need its own Twitter feed stems back to security benefits and probably because it was a fun hack for Coates to put into place.
The Twitter account, House of Coates, tweets things like, “Someone just activated the Sitting Room Sensor so I’m pretty sure someone’s at home,” or, “I just turned on the downstairs lights. It was getting a bit dark.”
Coates implemented a variety of devices and tools to accomplish the “smart house”. He utilized things like Belkin’s WeMo switches to control the lights in his living room, office, and bedroom from his iPhone. The WeMo motion sensor can tell if someone enters the room, while the Twine device keeps tabs on the temperature and his ficus tree’s moisture level.
Coates then connected all of those services to IFTTT (If This Then That), an online tool for programming things like, “If my friend uploads a photo to Facebook send me a text message.”
The security benefit is also obvious for example, if there’s suddenly movement in his house, the house will tweet about it and then Coates can take action.
