Automation

Currently

Computer

ControlPlane

    • Because I don't want to pack them each time I leave the house or office and have to unpack them, I own two mice. One stays at home and another stays at the office. Their sensitivities are different, so I have an AppleScript for each mouse that, after they get connected, set their tracking speed. (MAC address is a condition ControlPlane can check for.)

AppleScript

Linquet

Arriving in Summer 2013 Winter 2013, I will own 4 Linquet minis. They will make my phone beep if they go out of Bluetooth range, meaning I can stick them to stuff. The obvious use is for my keys. One will go on my umbrella (I hope to have a condition where, if it's out of range and the forecast calls for rain, my phone will beep). I haven't decided what I'll use the other 2 for.

I also put in for 4 Tile units (winter 2013/4), and am considering Wallet Trackr, which has the advantage of letting you replace the batteries. (One would have to buy replacement Tile units.)

IFTTT's iPhone app has geofencing. All of the geofencing use cases for me have been private, so I don't know how I'd use it for public actions. Lots of private actions to consider now that it's possible.

iPhone

Combining Drafts, Launch Center Pro, and Pythonista somehow would be amazing. I only really use Pythonista to clean up URLs with cruft, though.

Household

I own a Raspberry Pi, and in June 2013 will bear down and automate things with it. I have a list of unmet requirements to get it booted up.

    • power supply (requirement met with an unused smartphone's power supply)

    • video out cable

    • display (might use my TV)

    • ideas to use it for

Fantasyland

Living in Canada as a Canadian isn't an adventure, so I'm not really interested in yak shaving to make it one. Put another way: if I were living an adventure, aka living in another country, I would want to make it even more of an adventure. Since it's not already an adventure, making it one seems like a lot of work, man.

In the imaginary world where my life is an adventure, I'd like to make it more of one, however. I would therefore happily yak shave to to automate as much as possible. Here's how I might automate parts of my household (assuming I wanted to):

    • Front door entry: Lockitron, because keys are a huge burden.

  • Car: if Automatic plugged into a Car2Go or other car share, I'd buy one (and probably stick a Linquet mini on it since I wouldn't own the car, and might forget to take the Automatic unit out).

  • Bike: LOCK8 for allowing my friends to ride my bike (if I had friends who wanted to ride my bike)

  • Because I've been opening and closing shutters manually all this time like a sucker, NanoShutters would learn my sleep/wake patterns and "open" the blinds for me.