Hey TBHS crew, long time fan of the show, and I wanted to submit my first build concept to you. As you probably well know IoT is an exploding industry right now with a lot of great ideas. And also some terrible ones. IM LOOKING AT YOU SMART EGG HOLDER. Anyways, a lot of the major players have a very limited product scope, and are often fairly expensive. As a smart home user, I tire of lightbulbs and fancy webcams. I want some real data! So I would love to see the Ben Heck take on IoT. I think it is very possible to make cheap and simple IoT devices that could easily hook into robust APIs like the Wink system for remote monitoring via phone app. Specifically, I would LOVE to be able to see the level of oil in my tank at a vacation home, without breaking the bank on silly things (I may or may not have a webcam pointed at my oil level). My idea is maybe using something cheap like a hall effect sensor to get an analogue readout of the current level of oil, seems like an easy setup, one magnet, floats at the current level, gives you the variable signal you need, this way, I can monitor remote locations during the winter, or even not have to go into my cold basement to check! But this idea is much greater than that. I think you could very easily use simple, analogue sensors to make a whole range of very cheap and effective IoT devices for smarthomes that matter to actual people, and not users who want to remotely know how many eggs they have. Anyways, I would love to learn from the expertise TBHS has, and their unique take on THE INTERNET OF THINGS! Thanks so much for your consideration!
