SUPERMECHANICAL.BLOG

How-To: Use Twine to monitor traffic at your front door.

Tue, 14 May 2013 10:54:00 -0500

Most home security systems use a combination of PIR sensors and magnetic switches to monitor the activity in your house. You can easily do this with your Twine too, but without all the wiring!

What you’ll need:

Twine

Magnetic Switch and magnet

Tape or other adhesive

Here’s how you’ll do it:

1. Set up a rule at twine.supermechanical.com that looks something like this:

I set it up to text me because if I’m not around to hear someone at the door, I’ll probably have my phone on me. You can read more about Twine’s new universal texting plan here.

2. Set up your Twine and magnetic switch on the wall next to your door. The magnetic switch should be attached to the edge of the door jamb with the magnet graphic facing the doorway — this is where the actual magnetic sensor is. The location of your Twine doesn’t matter (as long as it’s within cable reach of the magnetic switch), so feel free to set it up wherever it fits best with the decor of your home or office.

3. Attach the magnet included with your magnetic switch (or any strong rare earth magnet) to the side of your door within about a quarter of an inch of the magnetic switch. The included magnet is adhesive-backed, but tape or other adhesive works as well.

4. Test your rule! If you don’t get the notification as expected, let us help.

5. Get a text when your kids come from school (or sneak out at night), when a customer walks in the door or when your pet sitter takes Fluffy out for a walk.

Extra credit: add a second rule that uses vibration to “check in” whenever you tap Twine.

How-To: Have Twine remind you to spend less time sitting

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 12:31:00 -0500

Confession: I spend too much time sitting. It’s an inevitable disadvantage of having a desk job. I set up my Twine to yell at me (well, email me) whenever I’ve been sitting in my chair for too long. You can do it too!

What you’ll need:

1. Connect the magnetic switch to your Twine and save a rule based on how often you want your Twine to tell you to take a hike. My rule has my Twine email me when I have been sitting for an hour (email notification works for me in this situation since I’m already on my computer).

2. Determine the best arrangement for the magnetic switch and magnets. These should be places on your chair that move closer together when you sit. The chair I used telescopes into the base when you sit down.

3. Set up the magnets. I taped a circle of magnets around the chair’s pneumatic cylinder right above where it slides into the telescoping midsection (while the part of the chair I stuck the magnets to is metal, the tape adds another level of security). With the circle of magnets, your Twine won’t think you’ve gotten up from your chair if you spin around and the magnetic switch isn’t close to the magnet anymore.

4. Set up the magnetic switch and Twine. I set the Twine up on the base of the chair, and the magnetic switch near the opening for the pneumatic cylinder. You’ll want to test to make sure the magnets and the switch are close enough together (less than a quarter of an inch) when you sit on the chair that it will read as closed. Make sure you arrange them so that the cord won’t get tangled around the chair legs (or your legs).

5. Don’t get angry when your Twine tells you to take a hike, it just wants you to be healthy!

How-To: Turn your Twine into a motion sensor

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 12:17:00 -0500

The breakout board is the most underappreciated of the external sensors, but it can do so much! It can tell you if you left the lights on, or turn your Twine into a button. It’s good for when you want a solid electrical connection, or your imagination exceeds the available sensors.

You know what else it can make your Twine do? See in the dark!

With a PIR (Passive Infrared) sensor attached to your Twine’s breakout board, you can turn your Twine into a motion sensor detector. Here’s how:

What you’ll need:

Twine
Breakout board
PIR sensor - This is a pyroelectric device that detects motion by measuring changes in the infrared (heat) levels emitted by surrounding objects.
1.2K Resistor

1. Connect the PIR to the breakout board. I used an external battery pack to power the PIR, but you could also connect the power for the PIR to the 3.3v pin on the breakout board and power it with Twine’s batteries or microUSB (if you run your Twine on batteries, powering the PIR with Twine’s batteries will decrease your battery life, which is why we used an external battery pack).

The wiring between the PIR, breakout board, and battery pack should look like this:The red cable is power (from the battery to the PIR), green is input (from the PIR to the breakout board), and black is ground. Use a 1.2K resistor to connect the input of the breakout board to ground. The resistor pulls the line down and triggers Twine’s rule. Here’s a closer look:2. Test that the PIR is triggering the breakout board. When the PIR, breakout board and Twine are connected and powered, go to your account at twine.supermechanical.com and put your Twine in fast mode.The breakout board will show “open” when the PIR senses motion (red LEDs on), and “closed” when there is no motion (be still!).

The PIR sensor we used has a range of about 30 ft, but it can vary so check the spec. sheet for the PIR sensor you use to find out its range and instructions for installation. Most common PIR sensors have a range of 10m and 180º. You’ll want to make sure your PIR is oriented in the direction you want to sense movement. Here’s some background information about using PIR sensors.

3. Set up a rule on your Twine. My rule says that when the breakout board is “open” then text me that Twine sees someone moving. I also set the rule options to untrigger after 10 seconds to avoid getting several notifications from the same event.

Extra credit:

To secretly monitor for movement, un-solder or cover the red LEDs on the PIR with tape. Otherwise when motion is detected, the LED might make burglars suspicious.

Hide it in a enclosure, so it blends into your environment. I found an old plastic jewelry box that happened to be the absolute perfect size for the PIR, breakout board, and battery pack. I measured the the optic (plastic lens) and drilled a hole in a corner of the plastic case. Then I drilled a small hole the same size as the jack of the breakout board to be able to plug in the audio cable from the Twine. Remember: measure twice, cut once!

How-To: Save your basement from flooding with Twine (and discount for April showers)

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 10:00:00 -0500

I know a lot of people in Texas don’t have the “luxury” of having a basement. The basement of my childhood was (and remains) a cold, musty, moist, spider-filled place. We only ventured there if a tornado was imminent. I don’t know about basements in other parts of the world; maybe they are pleasant places.

My other memory basement-related memory is of my Dad spending hours dealing with it when it flooded (maybe if it hadn’t flooded so frequently, it wouldn’t have been such a terrifying place). It would have been nice to have a notification that water was getting in, so he could take care of before it became a problem.

Well, the future is here: your basement (with a little help from your Twine) can tell you when the rain is coming in. We’ve heard Twine has already saved several basements; yours could be next!

Need a moisture sensor? Enter coupon code SPIDERS at check out for 10% off moisture sensors and Twine + moisture sensor kits for the month of April!

To get notified if your basement/bathroom/garage/low water crossing is flooding:

1. Set up a rule on twine.supermechanical.com. To get the moisture sensor to show up as an option, you’ll first need to get your Twine into fast mode (click on the fast/slow switch on the bottom of your Twine’s dashboard and flip your Twine bottom side up) and then firmly plug the moisture sensor into your Twine. I set up a text notification because if my basement starts flooding, I’d like to know immediately, not the next time I get around to checking my email. We recently released an upgrade to our SMS system. It also includes a phone call notification option, which is handy if you tend to overlook SMSs. Try it out!

2. Attach your Twine and moisture sensor to your basement.

In order for the moisture sensor to trigger as wet, BOTH gold tongs need to be wet. (Yes, real gold, to prevent corrosion.) Keep the moisture sensor vertical, and position the tongs where you expect water or other liquid to be present. If it gets wet above the tongs for a short period of time, it won’t cause damage (just make sure it dries thoroughly), but it may temporarily short the board.

The best way to get an immediate reading when water starts entering your basement is to set it up where the water would come in and collect. Twines aren’t waterproof so you want to make sure your Twine is high enough that it won’t get damaged if a full-on flood happens (a 10’ sensor cable might be helpful here). You’ll also want to place your Twine near an outlet, so you can power your Twine via microUSB (with external power, you won’t have to worry about changing batteries!).

Other things to consider: your basement walls may be concrete, so screwing/nailing the sensor to the wall may not be a viable option. If you use tape, make sure to use a waterproof one — water can creep up walls! If you’re going to use something adhesive, make sure the wall is clean and dry so it will hold securely. It should look something like this:

3. Check your Twine’s wireless connection. Your Twine doesn’t have as wide a Wi-Fi range as your computer or smartphone, so if your wireless router is located on an upper floor of your house, it may not reach all the way to the basement. You wouldn’t want to find this out in the middle of the flood! If you put your Twine in fast mode, you’ll see Wi-Fi signal bars at the bottom of the dashboard, and you can try positioning Twine for best reception (another reason to use a longer sensor cable).

3. Leave your basement because it is probably a scary place. Make sure you shake all the spiders out of your hair.

4. Take cover from the storm, and wait for your Twine to tell you if it gets wet (and hope it never has to).

Twine + Cloud Shield + Arduino + Bike = A More Healthy Nerd

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 11:48:16 -0500

Hey everybody, I’m the Other David at Supermechanical — I do a little bit of everything that relates to engineering and development here at Supermechanical. Most recently, I built Cloud Shield. As a nerd, I spend a lot of time sitting in front of my computer. I try to exercise regularly, but sometimes I get busy and forget. Twine + Cloud Shield + Arduino + Bike = A More Healthy Nerd.

I have a bicycle and a trainer at home that I use to work out — it’s set up so I can use my road bike as a stationary bike. Bonus: I don’t have to worry about getting hit by cars, and I can easily tear down the setup when not in use.

I use my Arduino to measure RPMs when I ride my bike and the Cloud Shield to trigger my Twine when I haven’t been on my bike in 24 hours. You can too!

Materials:

Twine
Reed switch and magnet
Resistor (~10 kOhm)
Arduino
Cloud Shield
Tape and/or twine (the string type)
Wire
Soldering iron or lead clips

1. Attach the reed switch to the bike frame. Make sure it’s secure so it doesn’t move up/down/around the frame. Then attach the magnet to your spokes. Like this:

2. Strip some wire and attach it to the terminals on the reed sensor like this:

3. Test to make sure it’s working properly. I ran the standard “DigitalReadSerial” sketch to test to make sure that everything was connected correctly. (Make sure that when the magnet is close to the reed switch it prints out 1.)

4. Download this code:

/*
SimpleExerciseMonitor
http://supermechanical.tumblr.com/
*/

#include <Twine.h>
#include <Time.h>

//** Twine variable
Twine cloud;

//** RPM tracking variables
// The number of times the Arduino senses the magnet come around.
// It won't be exactly 1 detect:1 revolution unless you add debouncing code.
volatile int num_detects = 0;

//** Exercise detecting variables
// The number of seconds in a day
time_t day_of_sec = 24*60*60;

// The time we need to spend on the bike to make it count as exercise.
time_t exer_target_time = 0;
// If you exercise over a minute, then you have exercised (low standards).
time_t exer_elapsed_time = 60; 
// This variable holds the time that is 24 hours after the last exercise.
time_t exer_trigger_time = 0;

//** RPM tracking functions
void wheel_detect()
{
  num_detects++;
}

void clear_wheel_detect()
{
  num_detects = 0;
}

//** Exercise detecting functions
void check_immediate_exercise()
{
 if (num_detects > 0 )
 {
    if(exer_target_time == 0)
    {
      // This is the first exercise activity that we have detected in a while.
      // Mark the time that'll be our threshold for saying that we've exercised.
      time_t exer_start_time = now();
      exer_target_time = exer_start_time + exer_elapsed_time;
    } 
    else if( now() > exer_target_time)
    {
      // Exercise detected!
      // We will hold off the Twine message for a day.
      exer_trigger_time = now() + day_of_sec;
    }
 } else {
   if(exer_target_time != 0)
    {
      // We need to clear out the target time because exercise has stopped.
      exer_target_time = 0;
    }
 }
}

void verify_daily_exercise()
{
 if(exer_trigger_time < now())
 {
   cloud.trigger(); // Trigger the rule on Twine that sends a message.
   exer_trigger_time = now() + day_of_sec;
 }
}

//** Main functions
void setup() {
 // Interrupt 0 means different pins on different Arduinos. (For mine, pin 2.)
 attachInterrupt(0, wheel_detect, FALLING);
}

void loop() {
 verify_daily_exercise();
 check_immediate_exercise();
 clear_wheel_detect();
 // wait a second
 delay(1000);
}

5. Verify and upload the code to your Arduino. This code will trigger the Cloud Shield every 24 hours after you last finished riding your bike.

6. Plug the cloud shield into your Twine. Make sure both ends of the cable are firmly connected.

7. Configure your Twine to notify you when you’re not keeping up with your exercise. Like this:

I set mine up to send me an email but I may add texts in the future if I am ignoring my emails too much. Now I can try to be a bit more consistent with my workouts. Hurray!

Update 1.3.0, Improved SMS, and Phone Calls

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 16:10:00 -0500

Twine’s got a few new tricks up its sleeve, and no, this isn’t an early April Fools joke!

Twine 1.3

Spring brings a new update for your Twine. Here’s what’s included:

Twitter support. Now your Twine can tweet to your friends that the basement is flooding (or just @you that the laundry is done).
Support for Cloud Shield. Get your Arduino project on the Internet and trolling forums in a few minutes.
HTTP action improvements: We’ve been listening - you can now use POST, any port, and looooong URLs.
Sensor values in all notifications! Previously, you could only include values in HTTP requests. Now your Twine can email you its temperature when triggered.

As always, to get the update, clear the cache on your browser, reload the site and resave the rules on your Twine.

Universal SMS and voice calls

That’s not all we’ve been working on! We’ve always focused on making Twine simple — our original promise was “Connect your things to the Internet without a nerd degree.”

In the past sending SMSs didn’t always meet this promise, so we’ve invested time into rewriting this. Now Twine can send text messages to virtually any number, regardless of carrier or country! This is a paid option that also adds some great new features: your Twine can optionally call you and speak notifications with the new phone call action, and all texts and calls will come from one number so you can save your Twine as a contact. Learn more about the SMS/voice call upgrade.

-Christina and the Supermechanics

How-To: Use Twine with Cloud Shield and Arduino to create a bananaphone.

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 13:47:00 -0500

You saw it last week in the video, and now you can do it yourself!

What you’ll need:
Banana (or anything conductive, like a doorknob)
Arduino
Twine
Cloud Shield
Alligator Clips

1. Connect your Cloud Shield to your Arduino.
First remove power from your Arduino, then align the shield as below. A good trick to aligning the shield properly is to make sure the bottommost pins on the cloud are connected to the ports for Vin and pin 8.

2. Connect the banana to the Cloud Shield with the alligator clip.
One end should be clipped to the banana, and the other on either of the capacitive sensors on the edge of the Cloud Shield. When the Arduino powers up, it will automatically calibrate the capacitive sensing. So, you’ll need to have the banana connected to the pad when the Arduino starts up to make it work.

3. Get your Arduino ready. Make sure you have the Arduino software.
Then, install our Cloud Shield library. You can download it here.
Need help installing libraries? Check out this tutorial!

Then go to:
File->Examples->Twine->TwineCloudSensor
Compile and upload that Tutorial code to your Arduino.
If you touch the banana now to test it, the LED on the Cloud Shield will light up.

4. Now, it’s time to connect the Cloud Shield to your Twine. Make sure you plug each end of the cable in securely!

5. Save a rule on your Twine to notify you when the Cloud Shield is triggered. Like this:
*Twine’s not quite ready to call you yet, but will be this week! Your Twine will call you with the text you type in the action. It will be available as a paid option.

Now your banana is ready to make a call when you pick it up!

Twine + Arduino = <3

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 13:06:33 -0500

As spring approaches (at least in the northern hemisphere), we hope your Twine is bringing reports of warmer temperatures! We’ve got an exciting new external sensor ready, and some some details about Twine’s battery life for you.

Announcing the Twine Cloud Shield

Stack Cloud Shield on your Arduino, connect it to Twine, and get email, texting, calling, and more in a jiffy. With Cloud Shield, you can add the ability to trigger any Twine output from your Arduino sketch with three lines of code, so you can focus on your idea and not debugging networking code. Want to see how easy it is? Want to see how many bananas (spoiler alert!) we can fit in a minute long video? Check out the video.
What could make this even better? For a limited time only, if you get a Twine + Cloud Shield kit now, you’ll get $10 off! Already have a Twine, but want the Cloud Shield? Free shipping for you (domestic only)!

In the video, you get a special sneak preview of a soon-to-be released notification method, phone calls! Your Twine will call you with the text you type in the action. It will be available as a paid option.

Battery life update

We’re not done reducing power consumption and are continuing to invest development resources into improving Twine battery life. You can read about where battery power goes, and how we’ll improve it in the Community.

How-To: Make Twine see the light with a photoresistor

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 14:42:56 -0600

Heya! Risto here. Ever since I’ve started using Twine to monitor the temperature in my house, I’ve found myself obsessing over my home’s energy consumption. Using the data I’ve been logging with Twine and ThingSpeak, I have been dissecting my utility bill to find out if the majority of my electricity is being consumed by my not so cool air conditioning unit. Turns out that although my AC is the main culprit, it’s not alone.

I suspect that my bad habit of leaving the light on in my garage for days at a time isn’t helping matters. I’ll step into the garage to grab some tools and walk out with my hands full, thinking “I’ll be right back,” only to realize much later that I never turned off the light. What to do??? Hrmmmmm… Ahha! Lightbulb!

With nothing but my Twine, a breakout board, and a cheap photoresistor, I now get a friendly reminder every time I leave the light on. Here’s how:

First, grab a photoresistor from your favorite electronic component distributor, or RadioShack, and insert the photoresistor’s leads (I clipped mine short) into the GND and IN terminals of your Twine’s breakout board (polarity doesn’t matter). You may want to experiment with wiring a small value resistor in line with the photoresistor if it’s too sensitive to the light you are trying (or not trying) to detect. In my case no extra resistor was necessary, but some may find a 560 to 1.5k resistor helpful.

Next, save a rule to your Twine to let you know when light is present. The breakout board will trigger as “closed” when the photoresistor detects light and “open” when light isn’t detected. My rule states that WHEN the breakout board is closed for 5 minutes, THEN text me a reminder to turn it off. The rule should look something like this:

Now, all that’s left is to put your Twine where you want to be able to sense light. I sat my Twine on a shelf out of the way and made sure the photoresistor was looking in the direction of my primary light source.

After trying this setup out for a few days, I found out that it would also tell me if I left the garage door open during the day because of the sunlight shining in. Two birds with one Twine!

I now take solace in the fact that Twine has got my back; hasta la vista, outrageous electric bill. Now if only I could get my roommate to turn off the stereo when he leaves…

How-To: Quantify Productivity with Twine

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 13:19:09 -0600

Our friends over at Handsome held FinishUp Weekend last week to inspire people to get things done! Supermechanical set up some Twines around the workspace to track just what goes into finishing projects up. You can check out the results here.

To keep track of coffee breaks, we set up a magnetic switch on the coffee urn so each time someone pressed the lever to up their caffeine levels, a rule would trigger.
Since the magnetic switch is normally closed, we set up a rule that looked like this:

To keep track of how many snack breaks participants took throughout the weekend, we set a Twine on top of the fridge, and monitored via vibration how often the doors were opened and closed (a magnetic switch would work well too, if your fridge is unusually stable).
Our vibration rule was set up like this, but you should adjust the vibration needed to trigger the rule based on your fridge:
You can read more detail about using the vibration sensor here.

With all that sustenance coming in, of course we had to measure it on its way out. Twine tracked bathroom breaks via magnetic switch.
We set up the magnetic switch on the handle so when the toilet was flushed it would come in range of the magnetic switch and trigger the rule (this also keeps Twine and the sensor safe from toilet water). This rule was just opposite of the coffee urn rule, because the magnetic switch on the toilet is set up as usually open.

And after all the coffee, snacks, bathroom breaks, and hard work, the reward was pressing a big red button at the finish line. You can read about how we hacked the Easy button here.

With the results graphed, it’s easy to track trends. How many times a day are you opening the fridge? Notice your toilet is getting more use than you thought? Maybe it’s time to look into ways to save water… Notice your employees are drinking a lot of coffee at certain times of day? Keep the pot full during those hours to maintain productivity levels.

How-To: Chart Twine's Course

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 13:12:00 -0600

Hey! My name is Risto and I do a little of everything here at Supermechanical. Most of my time is spent programming, assembling, and shipping your Twines around the world, but occasionally I get the itch to experiment with cool new ways to connect my world to the internet, like using Twine and HTTP requests to track the temperature at my house.

My AC has been acting up recently at home; every now and then it just cuts out. It’s not a big deal for me because I don’t usually leave perishable food lying around, but my StellaDog doesn’t really appreciate sweating it out the whole day. I set up my Twine to shoot me an email when the AC cuts out so I can come to her rescue as needed.

After I received a couple of email notifications I decided to use an HTTP request and ThingSpeak with my Twine to keep track of how often my AC is dying so I can prioritize getting it fixed.

When Twine’s rules are triggered, Twine can use an HTTP request to send information to ThingSpeak, and Thingspeak will graph the data from Twine and your world.

Twine notifies you when rules are triggered, but it doesn’t constantly log small differences in data. Remember: Twine will allow up to 30 notifications per hour.

To get started you’ll need a Twine and a free account at https://ThingSpeak.com.

First, set up an account at https://ThingSpeak.com/
Once you are signed in, click on “channels” tab, near the top left of the home page. Click on “create channel”, and you will see your new channel with a blank graph. Then click the “data import” tab. The second box on the right side of the page will include a link to tell your Twine where to send its data. The link should look something like this: http://api.ThingSpeak.com/update?key=YOUR_API_KEY_HERE&field1=0

Highlight and copy the link in the second box.

Next, go to your Twine’s rules, and create a rule for the temperature you want to monitor. I chose 79º F because that’s the high end of Stella’s comfort range. Side note: if you save an HTTP request with a Celsius temperature trigger, the rule will trigger, but the value will be translated to Fahrenheit (for now, we’ll be fixing this!).

Click “add an action” and choose “HTTP request” from the menu.

Paste the link you copied from ThingSpeak into the box.
Remove the “0” from the end of the link and then click on the sensor value you want your Twine to send to ThingSpeak (I used temperature).

Save the rule to your Twine and voila! Now, Twine is talking to ThingSpeak, and I can make sure StellaDog doesn’t turn into a hotdog.

If you go back to ThingSpeak and click on the “channel settings” tab. You’ll be able to edit field labels, add your location, and customize your chart.

What are you using your Twine and HTTP requests to track? Share in the Twine Community!

How-To: Tell if your Love is Mutual

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:50:00 -0600

If I were actually doing this for a valentine, it would probably be the most romantic gesture I’ve made in my life, ever. So, if you were waiting for the perfect Valentine’s day surprise for your loved ones, here it is! We’ll set up Twine to send an email when it senses vibration.

Things you need: Twine, a stuffed animal, and needle and thread.

Step 1: Surgery. Put your Mr. Monkey on the operating table (or chopping block). You wouldn’t want him to feel any unnecessary pain, so make sure you give him enough anesthetic to knock him out. And for goodness sakes, put him in a hospital gown to preserve some of his dignity. Find an appropriate spot to make the incision, and carefully take out the seam. The butt seam works well. This would also be a good time to give Mr. Monkey the tattoo he’s always dreamed of. Maybe a heart? Or your initials? Or a butterfly tramp stamp?

Step 2: Stick your Twine inside. Try it put it in the middle of the stuffing so the hard Twine edges don’t poke out. I found it was easiest to take most of the stuffing out, put the Twine in, and then pack the rest of the stuffing around Twine. Make a note of which direction your Twine is facing (This will be helpful if you want to add an orientation trigger to your rule).

Step 3: Close Mr. Monkey back up. I just basted him back together. If you don’t want to have to rip out stitches and resew whenever you change your Twine batteries, you could use buttons, velcro, or a zipper. (If you aren’t into needlecrafts and you’re not giving this to a child, safety pins will work fine)

Step 4: Let your Twine tell you when someone moves Mr. Monkey. Set up a rule that looks like this:

True Story: A few summers ago, a girl I was dating gave me a valentine that said: You’re better than a banana.

You can play with the sensitivity to manage when you get notifications. Don’t want a notification when Mr. Monkey is only nudged? Set the value higher. In our experiments, I found that throwing him against a wall will max it out at 4000 milli-gs (and I throw like a girl), shaking Mr. Monkey back and forth reported around 2000 milli-gs, and just moving him to a new spot on my desk read 800 milli-gs.
You could also add an orientation trigger so you only get notifications when Twine is vibrating AND top side up (for example).

Caveats: Nobody loves a creeper! Tell whoever you’re gifting Mr. Monkey to that there’s a Twine inside (this’ll also encourage them to use the bear to send you love notes instead of just setting it on a shelf).
Your Twine will need to be set up on the wireless network of the whoever you’re giving it to, if it’s not the same as your network.
Don’t throw Twine against walls without the padding monkey guts (or other stuffing) provide. This will result in damage to Twine and your walls!

Similar rules could also be used as a general activity sensor. Put Twine on your chair at work to tell your family when you’ve made it to work safely, and when you’re on your way home.

What are you using your Twine’s vibration sensor for? Share in the Twine Community!

How-To: Push your Twine's Buttons

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 17:27:00 -0600

Confession: I’ve been spending a lot of time on Pinterest. There are A LOT of buttons on pinterest. This button though, it’s far superior to Pinterest buttons.

Want to turn your Twine into an Internet-connected button via your breakout board? We’ve got instructions for an easy button, and an Easy Button.

To start off, do some background reading about your breakout board.

For the easy button:
You’ll need: a Twine, breakout board, and a push button. (I used part number 275-0011 from RadioShack; the one in the link is similar, but not an exact match).

1. You’ll want to attach wires to the leads on your button. I had them soldered on (thanks David!), but you could also use conductive thread.
2. Stick the wires into the GND and IN terminals on your breakout board. If the white levers pop off, don’t worry! They’re easy to pop back on.
3.Connect your breakout board to your Twine. Need a longer cable? We’ve got 10 footers. Here’s how it should look when it’s all connected:
4. Setup a rule on your Twine to tell you when your button is pushed. When you push the button, the circuit will be closed, so your rule should be set up for when the breakout board reads closed. Like this:

If you have button-happy friends/enemies you can increase the untrigger value under “Options”, so you won’t get as many notifications. I didn’t set an untrigger value, because I like it when my Twine complements me.

5. Push your button!

Bonus Step:
You wouldn’t want your button to be naked! Put it in a box and hide your Twine inside, or fit it inside a piece of pipe! Other ideas? Share in the Community.

Now, for the (inappropriately named) Easy Button!

You’ll need: Twine, a breakout board, soldering equipment/wire, and an Easy Button.

Caveat: The Easy Button circuitry has changed over time. Your Easy Button may not work the same as ours.

1. Take the rubber pads off the bottom of your Easy Button, and unscrew the screws underneath them. Set these aside, but don’t lose them!

2. Disassemble the Easy Button.

3. Find an electrical engineer. Hand him your easy button, and trust that he’ll get it working. Congratulations, you can skip to step 9.

4. If no electrical engineer is available, scratch off the traces as shown in the picture here with an X-Acto knife. This will isolate the button from the rest of the circuitry.
6. Solder wires on the pads as shown here:

6. Drill a hole in the side of the grey outer ring to feed the wires through.
7. Feed the wires through the hole and reassemble your Easy Button.

8. Attach the wires to GND and IN terminals on your breakout board.

9. Make a rule, like above!

10. Push ALL the buttons.

What would you use an Internet button for? Any other ideas for using the breakout board? Share in the Twine Community.

Update 1.2

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 17:18:00 -0600

It’s here! Twine 1.2!

What’s included in this release:
1. Vibration sensor functionality.
2. Several small reductions in power consumption.
3. Celsius functioning, for all our international friends.
4. UI improvements, including Wi-Fi signal and battery life bars and an improved fast mode switch.

To get the update, resave the rules on your Twine.

Here’s everything you need to know about the vibration sensor:

The vibration status indicator shows you how many milli-gs (g being gravity) of vibration your Twine is currently experiencing.

The vibration threshold slider is how you will set the vibration limits in your rules. If you click on the camera while your Twine is vibrating, it will set the sensitivity to the current level of vibration.

The rule conditions are how you control when your Twine notifies you. The trigger value is the length of time your Twine needs to be in the state in your rule before it will trigger. The untrigger value is the length of time your Twine needs to be out of that state before it can trigger again (this is useful to avoid having your rule fire several times in a short amount of time).

The vibration sensor is continuously evaluated when it’s used in a rule, so you won’t miss any notifications. It updates on your dashboard whenever your Twine sends an update (every 45 seconds in normal mode, and about 5 times a second in fast mode).

Dashboard interface improvements

To put your Twine in fast mode, click on the “fast/slow” switch at the bottom of the Twine’s dashboard. You’ll be prompted to flip your Twine bottom side up, and then you’ll be in fast mode (once Twine is in fast mode, you can flip it back over). In fast mode, your Twine will update on the website about 5 times a second, compared to the every 45 seconds in normal mode (warning: this eats batteries at 100x the normal rate, so don’t spend a lot of time in fast mode unless your Twine is running on external power).

The dashboard also displays Wi-Fi signal bars when your Twine is in fast mode, so you can check the reception your Twine gets in its location (no reception, no notifications). You can leave fast mode by using the fast/slow switch again (or it will automatically switch back to normal mode after a minute).

Need ideas for how to use the vibration sensor, or a complete tutorial? Check out our laundry alert how-to.

What are you using the vibration sensor for? Share with the Twine community!

How-To: Laundry

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 17:02:00 -0600

Don’t you just hate it when you forget to put your clothes in the dryer? (Heads up: the people you live with hate it when you do that too.) Good news! Twine’s built-in vibration sensor is ready to text you when your clothes are clean.

Vibration’s not showing on your dashboard? Well, resave your rules and it’ll be there!

What now? First, put your Twine on top of your washing machine (orientation doesn’t matter) and do some laundry. I’m assuming you already know how to do this. If you don’t know how to do laundry, call your Mom. (If you do, call her anyway. Her Twine told me she misses you.)

While the washing machine is running, take note of what the vibration reading is on your Twine’s dashboard, and any prolonged lulls in the spin cycle, this will help you determine the conditions for your rule. You’ll want to put your Twine in fast mode to do this. To put your Twine in fast mode, click on the “fast/slow” switch at the bottom of its dashboard, and flip your Twine bottom side up. Once you’ve got a good feel for the vibration levels of your washing machine, you can leave fast mode by using the fast/slow switch again (or it will automatically switch back to normal mode after a minute to save power).

Once you’ve got this information, it’s time to set up your laundry rule. In your Twine’s dashboard, click on the “rules” button, and add a rule. While doing my research load of laundry, I found my washer was usually shaking at 63 milli-gs, but it had a lull when it refilled with water mid-cycle and not much shaking was happening. So I set my rule up to have a 3 minute trigger value, and I set the value to 0 milli-gs.

The trigger value is the length of time your Twine needs to be in the specified state before the rule will trigger. This means I won’t know my laundry is done until Twine is still for 3 minutes (life is so hard), but it’s better than getting a false trigger. The untrigger value is the length of time your Twine needs to be out of that state before it can trigger again. So, if you have a 3 minute untrigger value, your rule won’t fire again until your Twine has been vibrating for 3 minutes. This can cut down on false positives if someone bumps into the washer.

Here’s what my rule looks like:

Click “Save to Twine”, and then flip your Twine bottom side up when prompted or wait until your Twine next checks our server for your rules to load.

If you’re planning on leaving your Twine on your washer or dryer as a permanent installation, you can attach it with tape, 3M strips, or something else sticky. If you’re planning on moving it from washer to dryer to other location, you don’t need to attach it, just set it on top. I just put my Twine on the lid (got to remember to move it before you take laundry out) like this:

Now you and your Twine are ready to do more laundry (you’re a pro at this now, right?).
Don’t forget to fold your clothes before they get wrinkly!

Want to level up your laundry even more? Set up a mag switch rule to tell you if your laundry has migrated. Here’s how the setup could look:

Share your plans for the vibration sensor in the Twine Community!

-Christina and the Supermechanics

How-to: Animal Control

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 14:50:00 -0600

Hi! I’m Christina, and my Twine is named Helga. By day, we answer your questions, write blog posts like this, drink tea, and try fun things out with Twine — like monitoring the pet door.

Pets can be difficult. They can’t speak so you never know exactly what they are thinking. Do they want in? Do they want out? Are they hungry? Where exactly are they? Who knows? No one, except for the dog whisperer.
If you use a pet door to try to cut down on interspecies communication problems, you can use a magnetic switch with your Twine to track when your pet comes and goes.
To monitor the movements of your cat/dog/squirrel/ferret/small child:

1. Attach your Twine and magnetic sensor securely to your wall (if you need to set up your mag switch farther than the included cable reaches, we also have 10’ cables available). You can do this with screws, duct tape, electric tape, gum (pre-chewed, of course), 3M strips, etc. I used packing tape, on the outside side of the pet door. If you don’t live in a place where the outside is secure, you should probably put the Twine on the inside to keep it safe. If you put it outside, make sure it is sheltered from the elements (Twine isn’t waterproof).

2. Attach a magnet to the side of the door so that when closed, it’s within 0.5” of the magnetic sensor (you can check whether it’s close enough on your Twine’s dashboard). The magnet included with the Twine magnetic switch has adhesive on one side, or you can stick to tape. Tape is less permanent than the magnet adhesive, so that may be a better option if you plan on moving your magswitch in the future. But, if your pet likes to chew on things, something permanent may be better. We wouldn’t want anyone to accidentally swallow a magnet. Your Twine/magnetic switch/magnet setup should look like this:

3. Set up a rule that looks like this:

The reset value under ‘options’ lets you tell Twine not to check this condition again for a while. This can be useful depending on how your door operates. Does it swing back and forth when it’s closing? Put in a 15 second reset value so you won’t be notified each time it swings. If it doesn’t swing, you can use a lower value. The text in the email can be changed to whatever best describes your pet’s behavior. And now you’ll know when your pet has used his/her door.

Looking for more ways to use your Twine?

Check out how Robert is using his Twine to monitor if he’s left his garage door open: http://www.savagehomeautomation.com/projects/twine-garage-door-monitor-revisit.html
(You can see all of Robert’s Twine projects here: http://twineprojects.com/)

What are you doing with your Twine? Share it with the Twine community! (That’s also the place to go for more ideas and general Twine talk).

How to use your Twine breakout board

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 15:55:00 -0600

Short version:

The easiest way to use the Twine breakout board is to hook up a set of contacts (switch, button, wire) between the IN and GND terminals (Fig 1). When the contacts are touching, the breakout is “closed”. When they aren’t, it’s “open”.

Longer version (for nerds):

The breakout has three terminals: “3.3V”, “IN”, and “GND”.

3.3V — power supply from the Twine. This voltage on this line will vary between 2.3 and 3.3V depending how the Twine is powered. When running on external power, this will stay constant at 3.3V. When running on batteries, this voltage will vary between 2.4-3.0V. The voltage will always be boosted to 3.0V just before the input is sampled. An internal power circuit limits current on this line to 50mA. Remember that any power drawn from this line will directly affect battery life.

IN — input to the Twine. This line is pulled to the Twine’s internal power rail by a 4.7K resistor. It is highly recommended to only pull this line low, and never drive it high. A great way to do this is to use an NPN transistor (Fig 3) or relay (Fig 4). Under no circumstances should you connect more than 3.3V to this port.

GND — connected directly to the Twine ground bus.

One year in: A very Twine Thanksgiving

Thu, 22 Nov 2012 17:00:56 -0600

One of our customers sent us this photo of his Twine monitoring the temperature of a turkey thawing in the garage. It’s a reminder of how awesome our community’s creativity and support is — thank you. We’ve learned and done a lot in the time since we first put Twine on Kickstarter, one year ago. And we’ve got miles to go!

In our latest update, we report our blessings for the last year; status on the Kickstarter; a bright new hardware partner; and a Black Friday sale at our store — $10 off any Twine on the 22nd.

Read it all on our Kickstarter page.

Early moisture sensor on top, production one on bottom....

Fri, 09 Nov 2012 12:14:55 -0600

Early moisture sensor on top, production one on bottom. Originally these were V-scored, which means that the panels of sensors have grooves to snap them apart, and provide support along the long edges during assembly, but it left a rough edge that might give you fiberglass splinters. Not great — so we redid them with a fancier process.

The new moisture sensors have a nice smooth edge produced by a router. It took extra time to make sure it would hold up in assembly, but we think it’s worth it. And now we’re shipping them!

It's a ship storm!

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 16:23:18 -0600

The last month has been super busy while we switched to a new way of life — we’re been testing every single Twine and sensor, folding and packing boxes, and shipping things out the door. Until you attempt to make a couple thousand of something, you don’t appreciate that moving them is a feat unto itself.

Read all about it in our latest Kickstarter update.