#ninjablocks

Ninja Blocks are tiny cloud enabled computers that can sense their environment by receiving input from a variety of sensors & can affect their surroundings by controlling lights, power sockets, and other actuators.

I have deployed four NinjaBlocks in my home:

1.  Kickstarter NinjaBlock in the Dining Room with a humidity and temperature sensor attached.

2.  2nd Generation NinjaBlock in my Office with 3 temperature/humidity sensors attached through 433 MHz RF, 4 PIR sensors, and 2 magnetic door sensors.

3.  Mac OS X NinjaBlock with a USB Weatherboard attached.

4.  Raspberry Pi NinjaBlock with an Arduino LDR sensor.

Over the past two years, I have hacked a smart home together using IOT technologies that I have sourced from various places.  Kickstarter has been a great source of these technologies:  Blink(1) from ThingM and NinjaBlocks are the ones that I have backed that have shipped.  I am still waiting for SmartThings, Knut, Tod, L8 Soundless Speaker, and LIFX to hack into the solution I have put together.

Additionally, I have IP Cameras that link into Vitamin D for people motion recognition and Airport Express for speakers throughout the house.  I have recently put some WeMos into the house for IP actuators.

I have been using Raspberry Pi and Arduino to build additional NinjaBlocks.

It is a simple visual representation of how many pushups I've done since 2-17-2013. The whole grid is comprised of 2,500 squares which all represent 1 unit of work, in my case I've decided to make that 10 pushups.

Every time I drop down and pump out 10 pushups I get rewarded by getting to click a button on a physical remote which instantly turns one of the light colored squares on the grid to a dark color while I watch.

If I can manage 50 or 100 in a single setting then I'm rewarded by getting to click the remote 5 or 10 times while I watch the squares light up.

I only have 2 squares lit up at the time of writing this but come back and view this post to see my progress as I fill up the grid. If you happen to be here while I'm doing pushups you'll be able to see the squares light up in real time.