Access Point of Interest

It may seem counterintuitive at first, but people really do not appreciate things that are free. Studies have repeatedly shown that we tend to value things based on what they cost us. This effect is often considered in marketing, as companies evaluate the pros and cons of giving away their product for free initially to build up a strong base of future customers. Such strategies can backfire as the “free” label may devalue a product in people’s minds, and even cause them to reject it.

The same is often true of information. If you have ever seen someone handing out leaflets in a public space, you know that people will go out of their way to keep their distance. A free leaflet? No thank you! But a university student will pay close attention to everything that their professor says, even in a course they are not very interested in, because they are paying a lot of money to be there.

Creative engineer Roni Bandini has taken advantage of this phenomenon to distribute information. In today’s world, with smartphones, social media, and 24/7 news always at our fingertips, it is hard to capture people’s attention. Freely posting your ideas to a website is just going to add to this noise, and most likely will go largely unnoticed. But Bandini thought that if someone had to put in just a little bit of work to get at the content, they might value it.

For this reason, Bandini developed a simple little device called the Honeypot Manifesto. This handheld gadget is powered by an ESP8266 development board, and poses as a Wi-Fi access point. When someone looking for an access point comes across the network that the Honeypot Manifesto advertises, they will be redirected to a sign-in page with a link to an MP3 that is hosted on the device. Oh the mystery! I don’t think I was supposed to find this — I wonder what it is?

That is the response Bandini is going for, anyway. He hopes that the clandestine nature of the content delivery will encourage people to value the content and give it a listen. In particular, he suggests that this device could be used to distribute that obscure manifesto you have been writing for years. And naturally you want to know if anyone is actually paying attention, so the Honeypot Manifesto comes equipped with a seven-segment display to give users a count of the number of times the content has been accessed in real-time.

The Honeypot Manifesto is limited in that only people within range of the Wi-Fi network can access the content, so worldwide distribution is not really an option, but it could really heat up the conversations at your local coffee shop. If you want more details on the operation of the device, head on over to the full project write-up.