I’m a big fan of MEMs and have written frequently about the sensorization of consumer tech. I recently came across two interesting applications. The first is Twine and the second is GreenGoose.
Twine is a “wireless sensor block tightly integrated with a cloud-based service.” Twine has WiFi, an internal temperature sensor and accelerometer (for vibration and orientation detection). You can also add additional external sensors. You then set the rules which in turn trigger messages. When a rule is triggered, a message is sent. Something like, “WHEN the moisture sensor gets dry THEN text “the plant needs water.”
GreenGoose produces a variety of sensor kits for things like children toothbrushes. The sensors communicate with a base station which then causes a playful, dancing monkey on the related app to respond.