Internet of Old Things

Bringing up the Internet of Things (IoT) with a group of tech-savvy friends is probably going to make for a polarizing conversation. Some people love the idea of having everything connected to the Internet, while others see it as a foot in the door for Skynet. If you are in the former group, then a prototype device called IoTIZER may be just what you have been waiting for.

IoTIZER is a general purpose, internet-connected tool designed by engineers at KAIST in Korea that can convert older electronics into IoT devices. Now it is finally possible to fire up your Atari 2600 on your way home so that you will not be delayed a second in playing another round of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

The team first attempted to design a system in which various modules would be available, each tailored to the intended use. Next they looked at building a single, finger-like device that could be used to interact with many different interfaces. They found these designs to be too difficult for non-technical users to set up, and inadequate in many situations. Learning from these failures, they finally settled on a robotic arm that was inspired by a 2D plotting machine. This design allows the device to manipulate many types of arbitrary interfaces by freely rotating, dragging, and pressing in 3D space.

IoTIZER makes use of stepper motors for precision movement. These motors are controlled by an Arduino Uno. To make the device remotely controllable, a WiFi-enabled Adafruit Feather HUZZAH, with an ESP8266 microcontroller, was also included in the design. The astute DIYer will recognize these as all being inexpensive, maker-friendly components — it certainly sounds reasonable to build a custom IoTIZER for those that do not want to wait for a commercial product release.

The team also created software to support easy configuration of an IoTIZER. It consists of a smartphone app, a server, and on-device software. The smartphone app accepts instructions from the user, which are sent to a server. That server then communicates with the IoTIZER to trigger the requested action.

IoTIZER was designed with the idea that it would be simple for non-technical users to operate. To understand if they had achieved their goal, the researchers conducted a usability study involving eight households. After an initial training session, the participants all installed IoTIZER, and customized it through the app. A total of eighteen devices were set up. The study participants generally reported the device to be easy to configure, and useful for many applications.

IoTIZER looks to be a very promising idea that can extend the useful lives of devices that we already own. Unfortunately, the device is fairly large, and most people would not want to have a number of these in their homes. This problem may be resolved to some degree by miniaturizing the electronics and reworking the structure of the device, but that is not likely to address all concerns. The team suggests that a future version of IoTIZER may take the form of a personal service robot that can navigate to multiple devices and manually manipulate them. That sounds like a great idea, but it may be a few years yet before such a device becomes practical.