Together with Pieter Pelt and Jan Kolkmeier, I made internet enabled fridge magnets. Those fridge magnets can provide information about traffic jams, your washing machine, the weather forecast, etc. Click through for a short summary and our project report.

More and more devices are connected with the internet. It’s only a matter of time before all your household devices, your car, your pets and even your clothes have an internet connection. All these devices generate data, which can be displayed by other devices. For example, there will be a million smartphone apps to keep track of your pets, check if your coffee machine needs a refill, etcetera.

To make some data easy accessible, we designed a hexagonal fridge magnets existing of six triagonal segments. Every segment has it’s own touch sensor and a multicolor LED. The magnet has an internet connection to retrieve data from several devices. Using only color patterns showed by the six LEDs, it is able to display data about the traffic, weather, your washing machine in the garage, etc. You could wake up in the morning and make yourself a cup of coffee, needing only one glance at the magnet to see how much delay you will have on your way to work and what the weather will be like today.

For more detailed project description, information on the techniques used and pictures: take a look at our project report.