10 Aug
2017
10 Aug
'17
8:41 p.m.
Hello everyone,
Again, thank you for your interest in the GardenMesh project, keep checking
for our new landing page which should be in the next few days at "
www.peoplesopen.net/gardenmesh"quot;.
For those of you unfamiliar with the project, Counter Culture Labs and
Sudoroom have teamed up to create a super low cost environmental sensor
that meshes automatically over a self-generated Wi-Fi network. We are
working to build software that makes gathering real-time data elementary
for any user at an accessible price.
We are ready with 5 new prototypes ready for installation into our first
test environments, and East Bay Vivarium (1827 Fifth Street c, Berkeley, CA
94710) has graciously agreed to allow us to use some of their enclosures
as our first environmental test sites!
*PLEASE NOTE* : Due to a schedule change, we need to install the units
Saturday August 12th, NOT Friday August 11.
We will be meeting at EBV at noon (12p) Saturday August 12th. We will be
taking a look at the units and exploring the store, and begin installation
under EBV supervision starting around 1pm.
Afterwards, I will be hosting a discussion and meet-and-greet for anyone
who is curious about the project at Doc's Refresher (984 University Ave,
Berkeley, CA 94710). I hope to see you there!
If you have any questions or are having trouble finding the group after you
arrive you can contact me, Mario, at (323)-314-0783.
Keep on meshing on!
-Mario
On Aug 10, 2017 15:31, "G Gallo" <ggallo102(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hello gardenmeshers,
Sierk and I have been hard at work preparing various parts of the project
for the Nat Geo grant and the East Bay Vivarium prototype roll out. A few
updates from my end:
1. We have ~6 working prototypes (aka Garden Gnodes) thanks to the
prototyping party last Sunday
2. We now have a way of remotely updating the scripts running on the Garden
Gnodes via telnet (if interested check out this script
<https://github.com/sudomesh/gardenmesh/blob/master/remoteupload.sh>)
3. With the help of Jake (from sudoroom), we also now have a few Garden
Gnodes being **safely** powered by Li-Po batteries.
4. I recently procured some analog multiplexers so we should be able to
test the light sensors soon.
5. The roll out at the East Bay Vivarium is planned for tomorrow at 9:30am,
this should be as simple as setting up one of our peoplesopen.net routers,
connecting it to their internet, and then plugging in the Garden Gnodes in
their respective tanks.
I plan at being at the Omni most of this evening preparing at least five of
the prototypes to be deployed at the Vivarium. This will involve flashing
the NodeMCU firmware, uploading the gardenmesh Lua script, and checking
that the remote update feature works correctly. If any one is interested in
learning about the hardware/firmware side of the project feel free to stop
by the Omni tonight (it's also weekly JavaScript night!).
I know there were a few people that came by this week interested in the
project, but I do not have their emails. Mario, if you want to add them to
this thread that would be great.
-grant
On Tue, Aug 8, 2017 at 12:04 AM, Bullitt Bourbon <bb(a)elleko.net> wrote:
11 Aug
11 Aug
7:44 a.m.
How do these devices compare to the dozens of wireless garden sensors
already available (https://www.postscapes.com/wireless-plant-sensors/)? The
one distinction that I recall being mentioned at a sudomesh meeting was
price, but once you factor in power, weatherproofing, and everything else,
I suspect this price difference will evaporate. In such a crowded field of
devices already being manufactured, is anyone else trying to be the low
priced option?
On Thursday, August 10, 2017, Mario Gabiati <mgabiati(a)gmail.com> wrote:
10:45 a.m.
Jehan, you're mostly correct. But I haven't seen an option much less than
$60. Even after powering and weatherproofing the actual cost of these
devices should be much less than $60. Also part of the "value proposition"
so to speak, is the potential meshing in which the garden gnodes would
create a distributed network to store their collective data that could then
be served to any client who may stumble upon the mesh. Garden mesh is not
about internet-connected plants, it's about building an internet of plants
(IoP). There have been a couple different models thrown around for
"monetizing" the garden mesh. Some have suggested a TOMS shoes model. Also
I believe Joorit at one point suggested an educational model in which we do
not sell them online just to anyone, but only people in our community who
come to the Omni and learn to build one themselves (or something along
those lines).
On Fri, Aug 11, 2017 at 7:44 AM, Jehan Tremback <jehan.tremback(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
1:34 p.m.
1.
from an end user's perspective, they approach a situation looking for a
client that does something, in this case, the gardening data service.
Might be obvious to state, but when ppl think of Instagram they're not
thinking about the servers or even the photos, they're thinking l tap
this icon and this thing pops up that can do this & that. Make sense?
The idea of serving to *any client is exciting, but if l was just
hearing about this, l'd ask: where is the website?/ What's this app
called?
This is why consumer weather stations partner with
weatherunderground.com.
l see the value in Garden Mesh as a service on community wireless
networks, something like Rhizomatica (http://rhizomatica.org), the theme
of the contest is feeding X million (humans). the existing video only
has a passing mention of this idea. For us in this geographical area, we
have Sudo Mesh/ Peoplesopen Network. l explained in another email
earlier that did not go to the larger mailing lists that in rural
Mexico, there is no municipal, Rhizomatica is all people have. Here in
the bay ppl have many options, but we have users committed to meshing
(on Peoplesopen Network) for specific reasons.
2.
l'm for **teaching a man to fish**, not for making a finished product.
At a PON meeting, we had a discussion about 'hackathons' being
exploitative of labor, but self exploitation for free R&D/ labor is ok?
It hurts OTHERS as well, promoting a culture of working yourself to
death. That's not OK with me. If people are willing to live with
experimental stuff, they can go get the components and figure it out for
themselves just like our project did here.
correct me if l'm wrong: what l hear Grant saying is that the units will
remain cheaper than existing
consumer products because there's no 'mark up'. the user only pays money
for the components and production costs.
Implicit is that the R&D, labor, warehousing are donated; those are the
costlier aspects of a project IMO.
Also, Per the vegan slave shoes buy 1 get 1 model, l'm assuming that
we're talking about a finished product/ kit of stuff rather than
distributing code/ telling people how to make good, solid housing, etc..
if we want to talk about market mechanisms for finished products, once a
lower cost product *that is not of inferior quality* enters the market,
it drives competitors to either price more competitively and/ or present
attributes to justify/ force a higher price point for themselves.
3.
At the previous Tuesday meeting, l spoke to Mario briefly, and it seemed
that he did not have a firm grasp of how Peoplesopen Network/ Sudo Mesh
is related to Garden Mesh beyond human resources. There is no front end
client yet, as l understand it, but Garden Mesh is a service that runs
on the Peoplesopen Network or can be applied to other wireless networks/
meshes.
On 2017-08-11 10:45, G Gallo wrote:
2902
days inactive
2902
days old
3 comments
4 participants
participants (4)
-
Bullitt Bourbon -
G Gallo -
Jehan Tremback -
Mario Gabiati