Crowdsourcing has become increasingly popular in the past few years. Google is now using it for traffic in its Maps product and pop artist Carly Rae Jepsen has asked her fans to vote for what lyrics they'd like to see in her next single. There are many, many applications for crowdsourcing, and the Internet has opened up a whole new way of delivering the results. Today, though, I have something different to show you. It's called Thermodo and has been described as "the tiny thermometer for mobile devices".
Developed by Robocat, Thermodo is a small device that plugs in to the headphone port of your mobile phone or tablet. It instantly reads the temperature and then displays it in the developer's apps. However, anyone can write an app for this thermometer, because Robocat is planning to release an open source SDK for popular weather apps like The Weather Channel and Wunderground to make use of it.
Thermodo began its life as a Kickstarter project on the 7th of March. It is now 772 percent funded and still growing. The developer is offering basic black and white editions of the device for $25, but pledge amounts go all the way up to $2999, which includes early access to the SDK, a t-shirt, sticker, use of the iOS app while it's in beta, and even an influence on future development — it's a full investor pledge. Robocat also has "stretch goals", which are offered once the project has reached a milestone. Once reaching the required amount of $35,000, Thermodo kept going and is at over $270,000 today. The next goal to be unlocked is a limited green edition, which will be offered as an alternative to people who supported the aluminium one that costs $39.
Robocat clearly has a good thing going for them with this bit of technology, but there's an even bigger picture here: this could be the beginning of crowdsourced weather. If you think about it, weather stations near you are what collect the data you see on your phone. But when you have a full thermometer in the palm of your hands at all times, what's to stop you from providing that information to others?
In the future, I'm really hoping to see someone develop an app that shares the data collected by these thermometers. Imagine looking at a map and seeing slightly different reports all around. Obviously there would be some problems with this. For example, if you're indoors the temperature reporting should be switched off because it's inaccurate. Still, there are a lot of great applications. This tool can create a user-generated heat map, which sounds pretty cool. Will it actually be useful in everyday life? We'll have to wait to find out.
You should go back the Thermodo Kickstarter project; you won't be disappointed.
Sources: The Verge (Jepsen)