Technology separates us from nature, but does it need to? I used some of my stay at the Digital Naturalism Conference in Thailand to prototype a clock that determines local time of day from sunlight to promote a natural sense of timekeeping.

By using technology to encourage human relationships with nature, I hope to highlight that machines can encourage us to be *more* human and organic rather than slowly making people irrelevant. As a counterpoint to consuming industrialized time we can also obtain time from scratch, regaining control of the very pacing that drives our lives. The Sun Set Clock uses local solar time, therefore noon is when the sun is at apogee at our location. This is how time used to be measured, before telegraphs and transcontinental trains required a move to time zones, where the clock and the sun no longer match. This system isn’t concerned with exactitude–there’s plenty of systems to do that if you need it. Instead this clock can be used to mark the general progress of the day rather than creating anxiety around how every minute is used.

Sun Set Clock in its natural environment

The initial prototype uses light level changes to detect sunrise and sunset, with local noon being the point exactly between these two events. When the clock starts, it makes its best estimate of the time. For example, if it’s dark at startup, the clock assumes that it’s midnight because that’s the best guess you can make without more information. At sunrise, this corrects to 6 am (a higher-quality guess) and then at sunset it will correct to the proper local time (not time zone time but astronomical time at your precise location). All of this works, although it’s still a bit fragile–operating best in full view of the sky on a relatively sunny day. Dark clouds, deep shadows and porch lights can confuse it, so these will need to be addressed in a future version. For now, I’m enjoying what I think of as “some time of my own.” I hope you enjoy it too.

Sun Set Clock – Instructions for Use

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New cellular protocols rolling out in 2017 will provide low power and low cost cellular connectivity for industrial Internet of Things applications. In this new video for Digi International, I explain the LTE-M and NB-IoT low bandwidth protocols by breaking down the differences between the two and sharing some examples of their use in industrial applications.

On Monday, March 6 at 10:20 p.m. Pacific time. NASA released TechEdSat 5 (Technical and Educational Satellite 5) satellite equipped with Digi XBee 802.15.4 modules as part of a test program for wireless communications between satellites and payloads from the International Space Station (ISS). TechEdSat 5 has been collecting data every 10 seconds and transmitting it from these radios via Wi-Fi ground link to monitor aerodynamics, gravity vector and magnetic field (for orbital positioning). As of August 2017, TechEdSat 5 continues to generate data from orbit, greatly exceeding its planned 6-week mission length. The data will be used to design passive de-orbit system for future space station payloads, so that experimental samples can be quickly returned from the ISS without waiting for a cargo mission.

The TechEdSat 5 mission has two goals:

1. Assisted GPS positioning for orbital determination (including aiming of antennas).
2. Checking the orbit and orbital decay before modulated Exo-Brake deployment, during full deployment and throughout the remainder of the de-orbital braking process.

The TechEdSat program is used to bring engineering interns up to speed with real spacecraft and space operations. Interns do most of the development and testing work, with everything reviewed by professional staff to guarantee mission reliability and safety.

Software is eating the world and the Internet of Things is no exception. In a new post for IoT NOW, I talk about four “software-minded” trends that I believe hardware vendors will increasingly consider for their equipment designs:

1. Overbuilding for longevity & flexibility
2. Service models
3. Data-driven decisions
4. Systems thinking

Read my post to learn more!