If You Build It We Will Hack It

Wed, 19 Jul 2017 18:28:55 +0100

First, an important note. The cinemagraph you see in this page comes from Ross at Second Crop Creative. He has some amazing work in his portfolio that you should check out.

If you build it, we will hack it

Before they were called geeks, and nowadays they call themselves Makers. This change was natural because it is now possible to produce a physical change in what surrounds you and to build anything you want to improve your quality of life.

What I mean is, before, being a Geek was mostly about software and computers. After, being a geek was linked to your desire to learn new things and to your enjoyment in several forms of pop culture. Today, these things still hold true and geeks have move forward to building whatever they set their hearts to.

Sensors, Computers, Robots, Drones, 3D Printers. And they don’t bother starting from scratch, they will use whatever is handy to make their life easier.

Let’s say you’re a product manager, product owner or just someone with a cool idea of something that you think people will want. Let’s imagine it’s the coolest thing ever, and yes we want it so just “shut up and take my money!”

It doesn’t matter how perfect you make your product, people will have different needs and different opinions. Some of us won’t even read the instruction manual before voicing that opinion online for family, friends and strangers. And some of us will simply say “fine” and move on to making it work the way we want to.

There are already a few examples of this. My favourite is Juicero.

This was a “smart juice maker” if we can call it that. In short, you buy juice packs and the automatic system will pour the juice for you with the push of a button. The juicer comes with a wifi connection to receive updates, it will analyse the juice pack and make sure it’s still drinkable.

It’s kind of expensive. Consumers who like the idea but disliked the price tag started buying the juice packs and simply squeezing it with their bare hands.

The company stepped forward to make a point about how consumers shouldn’t do it, but it was of little help.

This is not new. We have been messing with products for years. People have hacked their xbox consoles to install Linux, turned old laptops into media centres, changed their cars to make them look cooler, faster, or more efficient. It just that these things are now easier to share and therefore spread to a wider audience.

What can brands do about it? Not much, I would say. Recently, DJI announced was on the news about how it’s locking down its drones from tampering by Do It Yourself ‘hackers’. (They aren’t really hackers, they are costumers. Saying Hackers just makes for a better headline.)

Before you think this only happens in technology, remember that there are numerous mentions to “Ikea Hackers” around the web. People who use Ikea’s furniture in creative and innovative ways.

And this brings me to the heart of this article.

Ikea’s opportunity in the maker space

Right, so a while back I heard there was a new line of smart light bulbs that work in the same way as the Philips Hue system. You connect them to your home network with a Gateway and can control them using your smartphone.

Of course I jumped on it. Having already done a few experiments with the Philips Hue, I couldn’t way to try out the more affordable version.

I quickly learned that Ikea’s documentation and manuals don’t tell you much about how to develop around their product. This is the opportunity that the brand could make use of, the DIY community of Makers and Geeks.

With no access to data, we can speculate that these are not their target demographic or key customer. Yet for a brand with such a global presence, any effort in putting out information that will nurture this creativity can expand it to new levels.

Simply creating spaces for these customers to connect and share experience can bring insights on new products, showcases of creativity, and create a community with actual impact on the bottom line.

Yet, I sense some fear.

I have no proof to support this claim other than my (flawed) intuition. It’s a feeling from seeing bold marketing communication on one side and little effort in bonding with the DIY Community.

Hacking the Ikea Trådfri

Alright, but lets take this further. Let’s hack Ikea.

With a few searches and hints from friends, I found an article breaking down the steps necessary to interact with the lights without using their App.

The article uses a Raspberry Pi, which is as cheap a computer as you can get right now, and Python programming. This works because the lights use Zigbee and the COAPS protocol.

The key information was that Ikea is using a standard username and password for all devices, as well as keeping the details in a sticker beneath the Gateway device.

Are you following me so far? Good.

The article above details how you can turn the lights on and off using only your computer or light sensors attached to your Raspberry PI. It’s a great first step but needs a bit extra.

If you are reading this you have probably seen my post about Johnny Five, the clever little robot that controls a few things around my house and texts me important information. (Like, that the new episode of Game of Thrones is out.)

I figured that the next logical step would be to connect the system to Johnny and let him do his regular thing of making sure everything works as if by magic.

This link allows me to extend the usual features of the Ikea smart lights.

Turn lights on or off when I arrive or leave
Set specific lights to turn on with specific color settings ¹
Dim the lights if I start watching tv after a certain time
Control the intensity based on the current progress of the sunset

You get the idea. This goes a bit beyond using the remote, it allows me to make some routines automatic if I wish.

What does this have to do with Marketing

For starters this is long roundabout post is about understanding your stakeholders. Customers and other parties that will use your product and wish to expand it to do something else.

The rest, well the rest is a practical example intertwined. I don’t want you to think that I am discussing hypothetical scenarios. This can be done, is being done, and this article includes links for you to do it too.

Next, this is about planning. When you conceive any Strategy, you need to be aware that these things are a possibility and their impact will vary. It depends on the community of stakeholders and the context of the product or service.

The approach is to either go against it or take it as an opportunity. I suggest the last one, of course.

In the great scheme of things, this is about the need to be more than a Marketing Manager. If all you are doing is managing the relationship between the brand and the agency, keeping campaigns (projects) on track and on budget, what real value are you bringing to the process?

Do yourself a favor and follow some of the ~~clichés~~ lessons we get from startup culture. Get out of the office, talk with your stakeholders face to face. Try to be as flexible (agile) as possible when these opportunities present themselves.

In the end, if you really want to make a difference, you need to drag businesses away from their comfort zone and closer to their customers. Doing whatever it takes.

My notes about the difference between the IKEA Trådfri and Philips Hue

	Ikea Trådfri	Philips Hue
App	Works in home wifi only	Works anywhere
Gateway	Optional ²	Required
Color temperature	Yes	Yes
Colours	No	Yes
DIY	No ³	Yes ⁴
Technology	Zigbee	Information Not Available
Triggers	Time based	Time and location based

You can’t really control the color, but you can set the light to 3 different color temperatures. ↩︎

Sparrowatch, Technology to save the forest

Sun, 02 Jul 2017 13:00:35 +0100

This story starts last year, when a few friends and me participated in the Lisbon Maker Faire.

It happened on a whim, we had about 4 weeks to come up with an idea that was cool enough to display and useful enough to worth people’s time. It just happens that at that time the guys were talking about the new NodeMCU and and the wifi module ESP8266.

You know the feeling that you’re the dumbest person in the room? And that’s ok because everyone else is cool and teaches you stuff? That’s the feeling I get from being around them. So please hang in there with me a little longer.

The NodeMCU kits let you connect pretty much anything to wifi network. The idea was simple, we make these modules talk with each other and pass information along the network until it reaches one that is connected to the internet.

And since we can include all sorts of sensors in the system, we started with temperature and humidity modules.

To help these devices blend with the environment we decided to turn them into birdhouses. It made sense, right? Forests are systems and you can’t start messing with it without giving something back.

The endpoint of the SparroWatch is a dashboard where we can monitor the variations in the forest. Which areas are dryer, which are more likely to be the starting point of a forest fire.

In a nutshell, that’s it. There are many other questions open but the small proof of concept we did for the maker faire was good enough. The next step would be to run a pilot project because there are a few things we still don’t know or are unsure about.

What is the range of the sensors?

We’re not sure at this point.

How resilient is the system?

We know the batteries can hold up for 2 to 3 weeks without solar energy, but dust and other debris may require maintenance on the nests.

How long is the range?

Our estimation is that 250 meters is a safe distance. This means 6 nests could cover 1.5 km.

Lisbon Maker Faire 2016

Pedrógão Grande

You may have heard there was a huge forest fire in Portugal a few weeks ago. 64 people died as a result.

This sparked some interest about technology that could be used to detect or prevent forest fires. Flávio Nunes heard about the SparroWatch idea and wrote a sum up of that and other projects.

The fire began as a result of a dry storm. I was driving to Beirã-Marvão that day, 100 km from Pedrógão. Even there you could feel the dry air and see a few strikes of lightning in the sky.

I have serious doubts whether our systems could have been of any use to prevent such a freak occurrence of circumstances and weather. Experts are still trying to determine the exact reasons besides the dry storm.

The large plantation of eucalyptus tree is being looked at as a factor, as it burns quickly and is not indigenous to the region. To make matters worse, its seems there were issues with the emergency communication system that the fire brigades were using.

We are looking for one single cause, someone or something to blame. This is a useless exercise of finger pointing. A constructive approach would be to legislate the plantation of eucalyptus trees and to improve the way we manage our forests.

I would love it if a system like the SparroWatch could be useful, and the code with instructions are available on GitHub for anyone to use. And more, there is an article with details on the OneOverZero Labs website.

There’s nothing to stop you! Just make sure to credit back to the ! OneOverZero Labs when you do build your SparroWatch net.

Digital Insanity Magazine by Bruno Amaral

If You Build It We Will Hack It