Are You Okay? Widget
Making It Look Good
The technology is interesting, lots of pieces hooked together to make a whole that is greater than its parts. However, the social engineering on this device is critical to its real world use.
I like stuffed animals for the cuteness factor. But putting this in a box on a refrigerator requires less interaction from the person being monitored. In the end, I went for the stuffed animal, modifying an off the shelf plush octopus.
I clipped the LED leads then glued the jumper cables to the leads. I used fishing line to hang the LED in the octopus head.
A little more fishing line attached the accelerometer (which has mounting holes) to the very top of the head. The next step is to attach all of that to the Electric Imp to the battery compartment.
Note that the Imp has to be accessible to the caregiver to set the WiFi information (via the Electric Imp Blink Up method with a smart phone). The batteries themselves should be changeable by the user (i.e. elderly neighbor). Organizing those two goals and getting all the cables to go in correct direction can be tricky. It is a matter of trying it before taping and hot-gluing it together. Of course, I recommend testing before putting it all together.
In the end, I’m pleased with how it turned out. But this is my first one (ahem, this is my first time adding electronics to a plush).
I have plans for the little dog stuffed animal. The first step is to choose a battery module that works for the end device: