Sandalias!

New sandalias!

En route...

 En route!

Pack!

Last time we had this on the car is quite a long time ago. About 11 years, when we last moved house. This time it's about moving house and country. But, only for three months to start with.

I did not know we had that much essentials that we cannot do without for three months, but we do. Well, actually we planned a mini removal of a part of our household, like half of our books, summer clothes, garden furniture, tools, but decided against that in the end. Instead we'll bring the car, and pack that with the most essential essentials. And we still have more of those than we thought.

Tools, because we need to do.. things. Computers, to try out the internets.

I see someone has sneaked in an extra pair of sneakers.

Oh well.

ZoombaTracker™ IoT

This is the fruit of last month's work: the ZoombaTracker™, GrannyFinder™, CarTracer™, etc.

Remember Zoomba? Of course you do. Well, she runs off, which is worrying for city dwellers. The ZoombaTracker™ is a wearable IoT "Internet of Things" thingie consisting of a GSM+GPS module, the smallest Arduino I could find, a LiPo battery and two antennae in a little (match)box, that will be attached to Zoomba's collar.

GPS trackers for pets are readily available, but they usually come with a subscription service that costs a lot of money, and I don't like that. The ZoombaTracker™ is different. It can be controlled by sending it a simple SMS, and it will return the GPS location of the device as an answer. So, at the cost of one SMS you will know where Zoomba, granny or your car are.

The device is designed to be sleeping mostly, to save the battery. Current testing show the device will work up to 50 hours on a charged 550mAh LiPo battery, which is not too bad. The tracker is active 08:00 till midnight, so 16 hours a day. It should work two days on a charge. Perhaps removing the 3 LEDs will further decrease power consumption.

The ZoombaTracker™ will send an SMS when the battery is low, to remind you to charge or change the battery.

Here is an example: some commands, an SMS with a link to Google Maps, and the result.


(Gw=send GPS location as soon as fix is obtained, Mg=send in Google Maps format, Gf=force send GPS location NOW, G0=GPS off)

The complete device. It will be attached to a dog collar next, and tested in the wild.