Hi, everyone. Summer’s here and the time is right for… an Electric Imp update. As always, there are interesting things happening around here so let’s get caught up.
Happy 1st Birthday to the Imp!
Today marks the first anniversary since our powerful and pioneering little imp card was released – a milestone we’re incredibly proud of. One year later, we have thousands of developers around the world, three retail partners and, thanks to all of you, a fast growing platform that makes it easy to connect your devices to the Internet.
More Ways to Get More Imps
Imp-enabling your next project just got even easier with the addition of new relationships with online retailers Digi-Key and SmARtMAKER, who join the growing roster of places on the Web where imp modules are now available for makers around the world.
Egg-citing News
We’re thrilled that the first Wink: Instantly Connected product – empowered by the Electric Imp connectivity solution, of course – has been announced. Ever get to the grocery store and wonder how many eggs you have in your refrigerator? Now you’ll no longer be scrambling, because the Quirky Smart Egg Tray: Egg Minder is amongst several smart and Internet-enabled consumer products releasing this fall from the Quirky + GE partnership announced last May. The news definitely goes over easy with us.
And the Winners Are…
Kudos and congrats to our talented summer intern, Siddhartho Bhattacharya, whose UC Berkeley team won the recent Greylock Hackfest, a prestigious invitation only competition amongst top US university students. Siddhartho and his three teammates created an imp-enabled hardware and software-based “Smart Room” system that enables various devices to be controlled by hand gestures through a watch-size sensor worn on the wrist.
And a big Electric Imp shout out to maker Jon Lee, whose cool Imp-enabled snail mail notifier video won our recent YouTube contest. Jon nabbed a fashionable Electric Imp t-shirt and a variety of other Imp goodies for his award winning effort.
Jon’s device was created to make life easier for his father-in-law, who lives about half a mile away from where his mailbox is located. Jon resourcefully received permission to access the WiFi signal of a neighbor near the mailbox and now his father-in-law is alerted only on the days mail arrives, saving him from an uncomfortable trek during the blazing hot Bakersfield, California summer.
Welcome Yanir!
Continuing our growth trend, Electric Imp is happy to welcome Yanir Hirshberg to our team. Yanir, a Systems Engineer at Electric Imp, comes to us from New York City, where he worked for an appliance manufacturer and wore a variety of hats – one of which was hardware developer.
Yanir first learned about Electric Imp while designing a M2M solution for monitoring vaccine refrigerators for his previous employer. He was impressed by how elegant of a solution the Electric Imp platform offered.
In a perfect world, Yanir’s ultimate device is an Imp-enabled oven that allows him to keep track of his roasts from the comfort of a couch or the beach.
We have several new openings at Electric Imp, so if you’re interested in joining our amazing team please visit the Careers section of our website.
Devilishly Clever
And finally, if you’re looking for a convenient way to control your imp-powered device, check out this new – and free – “Little Devil Controller” iPhone app from Brendan Dawes. The app comes with three push buttons, two switches and one slider, all of which are configurable to send a JSON key/value pair to any Electric Imp device via the device URL. Nicely done yet again, Brendan!
We’ll have more good stuff to tell you about next month, so stay tuned!
Tom Sarris
Communications Manager