Last night I went to an event hosted by Tec Hub, in Eastleigh, entitled “Digital Media Network – Internet of Things”
I’ve heard the phrase “Internet of Things” increasingly in the last few months, and thought it was about time I had a closer look at what it really meant. I knew that it was connected to controlling physical objects from the web, or a mobile device, but in what way?
There appear to be very few boundaries to the potential uses, other than – obviously – physics and current technology
The first speaker is Adam Burt – Hacksoton organiser and front end web developer at Etch.
Adam’s talk was an introduction to the idea and theory behind the Internet of Things, and encouraging people to experiment with it and create their own “Things”.
Hacksoton is one of many platforms which allows people the time, space and expertise to help create any number of weird and wonderful applications, and has showcased some amazing, playful inventions using technology such as 3D printing, programmable Arduino boards, Raspberry Pi computers… it’d be impossible to catalogue them all! But if you want a hands on example of how The Internet of Things has captured people’s imagination already, I’d recommend coming along to the next one!
The second speaker was Tom Metcalfe, design consultant and Co-Founder of Rain Cloud.
Tom mostly shared examples of his and other people’s creations which are largely art installations which extract data from real world situations and translate them into sculptures.
Last on was Winchester Innovation Ltd’s Nick Thorne, who discussed the benefits of using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), which is most commonly used in Apple’s phones, but also in clothing and other devices that interact with smartphone apps.
The talk highlighted the benefits and pitfalls of using BLE, as well as an overview of some projects that Winchester Innovation Ltd have been working on.
Overall, the speakers were interesting, engaging and entertaining, and the whole evening was pleasurable. A good excuse to chat with friends and to meet new people.
I’m looking forward to the next one! 🙂