Gadget Freak Case #257: TempBug -- Internet-Connected Thermometer 14291

Last January, we had some trouble with the heat in my office -- specifically, the kind of trouble wherein the heat is not on, you turn it up, and it is still not on. This went on for more than a few days and finally ended a day or two after we got an email announcing that the heat was broken and speculating that it had probably been down for a few days. My teammates and I laughed a bit at this -- we knew exactly when the heat had stopped working. We had a continuous record of the temperature in the office going back months, with 15-minute resolution.

You can do this, too, and it's quick, cheap, and easy. This little gadget is built around an Electric Imp, and you can push the data from the Imp out to anywhere you want. In my case, I found it handy to push the data to a neat service called Xively, which stores and graphs the data for free.

This project takes about an hour to two hours if you have never done a project with an Electric Imp. When you're done, you will have a thermometer that you can toss anywhere with WiFi and collect data for months to years on a single battery, depending on how often you check the temperature.

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Click here to view Table 1.

Click here to view Table 2.

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Check out the Best of Gadget Freak -- Volume 2 Technology Roundup to see some of the best gadgets that your peers have created.

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