Twitter: Now As Powerful as “The Clapper”

by John Biggs on May 20, 2008

Control Lights with Twitter from Justin on Vimeo.

If you can’t get enough of Twitter why not try Twitter-enabling your home? By connecting his cellphone with his Twitter account, Justin Wickett has created what amounts to a remote switch triggered by Twitter messages.

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tech pr - May 20th, 2008 at 4:37 am PDT

Vow. Great idea. Some day Al Queda may use twitter to trigger bombs from remote places!!!!!! Just kidding. Hope nothing like that happens.

Michael - January 29th, 2009 at 8:56 am PST

Perhaps you saw the importance of a cellphone in the movie The Dark Knight?

reply

John Biggs (@johnbiggs) - May 20th, 2008 at 4:38 am PDT

Ha! That’s really funny! You should have a sitcom!

Daniel Bower - May 20th, 2008 at 4:54 am PDT

“What do you mean you can’t turn the lights off?”

“Twitters down again…”

add - May 20th, 2008 at 5:01 am PDT

now how stupid is that?

Eren Emre KANAL - May 20th, 2008 at 5:05 am PDT

an oldie but goldie: “your twitter notifies you when somebody is at the door”

http://www.oreillynet.com/mac/....._home.html

Geoff McQueen - May 20th, 2008 at 5:06 am PDT

Anyone considering following to see when this guy turns his lights on and off should also consider reading out at http://www.beyondblue.com.au/ for professional help…

El-Hassan Wanas - May 20th, 2008 at 5:11 am PDT

Great work, but I Would love to send “Making coffee” on twitter and get home to find my coffee ready.

PI Staker - May 20th, 2008 at 5:12 am PDT

mobile phone -> satellite -> laptop -> web application -> transmitter -> switch = broken light bulb circuit. man’s genius knows no bounds.

Igor The Troll - May 20th, 2008 at 5:14 am PDT

Hook up Twitter to Michael. Twitt Off, Michael disappears! Twitt On, Michael appears!

Remote Michael. LOL

SKhan - May 20th, 2008 at 5:30 am PDT

Thats awesome i cant imagine that Twiter will come so strong that will help us in our daily operations, Hats off for twiter!!

Reader - May 20th, 2008 at 5:52 am PDT

No big deal. Not saying that Twitter isn’t a cool service but you could do that even without Twitter. You can have a text message emailed to outlook and have a trigger in outlook to turn off the lights.

pierreloic - May 20th, 2008 at 5:59 am PDT

From Bostonbarcamp last Saturday: someone was showing how to use Twitter and RFID - e.g. my wife receives a tweet when I get home.

Obama - May 20th, 2008 at 6:06 am PDT

Oh No! Twitter messages activating a cell phone connected switch.

John McCain will claim Hamas will use my cell phone to trigger a bomb
in the US should I get elected? Is Twitter enabling terroritsts?

MikeT - May 20th, 2008 at 6:18 am PDT

Grim outlook of the twitty future: I’ll have to twit to have my ass wiped
not funny

Doug - May 20th, 2008 at 6:28 am PDT

#11 i think office interop requires a little more effort than the twitter api.

Wonder if you tweet “poop coming out” whether you could get your toilet roll to dish out a couple pieces of paper…

A Williams - May 20th, 2008 at 7:08 am PDT

I can imagine:

1:05pm - off to get a burger…
1:10pm - im eating my burger!! yum
1:16pm - !Bathroom lights on
1:17pm - going to have a long shit now, brb
1:32pm - wow that was a big shit, back
1:33pm - no wait think theres more…
1:38pm - kk done

Acctully, wait, we already kind of have that, minus the 3rd line!

Alexis Brion - May 20th, 2008 at 7:51 am PDT

Where can I buy The Clapper???!!! We don’t have that in Europe

Boris - May 20th, 2008 at 8:22 am PDT

Somewhere there is a “How many Twitter users does it take to change a lightbulb” in this story…

Faramarz - May 20th, 2008 at 9:11 am PDT

Michael wasn’t kicking about twitters network effect kicking in. damn that was way cool!

if only twitter can microwave my food while i’m pulling in the drive way, that would be the end of it

Stan Oleynick - May 20th, 2008 at 9:55 am PDT

Cool idea!! Now if Twitter could only cook breakfast for me and mow my lawn…

Justine - May 20th, 2008 at 10:15 am PDT

Hahaha. This is seriously amazing. What’s even more hilarious is Daniel Bower’s comment. lolllzzzzzzz

Alan Bradford - May 20th, 2008 at 1:27 pm PDT

Someone must have used a similar set-up and is using it to mess with Twitter’s servers.

Silly geeky pranksters.

You better knock it off, or I’m gonna come de-fragment your hard drive with my fist. Boo ya.

david saintloth - May 20th, 2008 at 2:47 pm PDT

exactly as some one said, any program on the pc can be set to monitor some other program and then on that basis do something in the home. the fact he used twitter doesn’t make it unique to twitter unfortunately. though …now that I’ve seen it I have some ideas I have to go write down….

grin

Josh Fraser - May 20th, 2008 at 3:50 pm PDT

Could you create a more unreliable light switch??

Your Uncle Bob - May 21st, 2008 at 5:59 am PDT

…because turning the switch on and off yourself is too hard??

…or any of the other far more reliable ways of remotely controlling switches and appliances?

I can appreciate the geek factor here, but c’mon..Really? Seriously?

J - May 21st, 2008 at 8:36 am PDT

I think the point of the project was just to see if it could be done. As I understand it, he used similar technology to what his team used to build Strawpoll ( strawpollnow.com ).

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