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The House That Tweets

by Kendra Cunningham on June 25, 2009 at 02:59 PM


Twitter, apparently, now appeals to inanimate objects. Not letting his house miss the Web 2.0 boom, Andy Stanford-Clark, a 43-year-old computer engineer, has wired his U.K. home with sensors to tweet status updates.

According to The Daily Mail, Mr. Stanford-Clark, who is a "distinguished engineer and master inventor" at IBM, was worried about the upkeep of his home in the Isle of Wright. To solve this problem, he set up a network of sensors to monitor every activity in the house – from mouse traps to his power meter.

The information is gathered and sent through special IBM software that turns the information into text, which is then posted to Twitter and sent to Mr. Stanford-Clark's mobile phone. As a result, he receives tweets about open windows, left-on lights, and broken garden hoses. The house tells him every time an additional £10 (about $16) has been spent on utilities, helping his family conserve energy and lower their electricity bill by 30-percent.

Fascinated by the endless potential of the Internet, Mr. Stanford-Clark told The Daily Mail that he predicts this technology will be available for most homes in two to three years. [From: The Daily Mail]

Tags: energy, green, home, ibm, sensor, top, twitter

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