A Mother for the IoT

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Move over Mother of Dragons, CES 2014 just introduced us to our new favourite semi-maternal figure-- "Mother," a motion-sensing device promising to be nothing less than the Mother of the Internet of Things.

MotherLooking like a cross between a Russian nesting doll and girl robot EVE from Pixar's WALL-E, Mother does like mothers do and follows all one does. To do so she uses "cookies," small wireless motion and temperature sensors. The idea goes that users attach cookies to any objects, and in turn Mother keeps track of habits and warns of changes.

Among the examples developer Sen.se (founded by Nabaztag creator Rafi Haladjian) gives are checking whether a door is open or closed, keeping track of how much coffee is being drunk or even making sure one is brushing their teeth well. Cookies communicate with both Mother and to each other via wifi, and in turn the Mother unit does the digital equivalent of nagging through the medium of smartphone alerts.

Each Mother device keeps track of up to 24 cookies (4 included), with each cookie promising up to 15 months of battery life. Users can also repurpose cookies at any time, meaning "device fatigue" should be less of a problem. For even more variety the Mother API is fully open to developer.

Mother is already available in some European markets, and should start shipping to further territories from February 2014.

Go Sen.se Mother