tempescopeA box of rain in your living roomTempescope is now open source!
A while back, I published Tempescope, an ambient physical display that simulates weather inside a little box, to make knowing tomorrow's weather as easy as looking outside the window.
I have now redesigned and published a new, open source version here:
http://tempescope.com
The major changes are:
- the build only requires basic materials like acrylic boards and electrical components (apart from the water pump and mist diffuser)
- the entire system is now self-contained inside the box (whereas before there was a separate shoe-box containing the circuits)
- it takes roughly $80 to build (less than half the previous version which took $150)
The schematics and CAD diagrams, as well as the software are all available open sourced on the above website, and anyone is free to build Tempescope.
Instructions on building is also being updated daily, and we almost have complete coverage of the entire build flow.
Not too much has changed in terms of functionality.
A PC program reading weather forecasts from Wunderground controls Tempescope to simulate various kinds of weather including:
clouds,
rain and lightning,
and of course sunny weather.
You can also build all kinds of applications using the developer library, like programs that let you know the weather of whoever you're taking to on Skype!
What's inside the Tempescope
- a shrinked Arduino ($5)
- a 12V water pump ($2.4)
- a 24V mist diffuser ($6)
- and an acrylic casing (which you cut and build yourself)