Umbrella Stand Hack with Rain Alert

When 10K people sponsor an kickstarter, it will be under $100 and sold in SkyMall.

Well, his whole thing is over engineered. He doesn't need a PIR sensor (the LEDs can just be on all the time), he doesn't need RGB addressable LEDs (he can just connect an LED to a GPIO port with a resistor). He also doesn't need a computer with the power to handle a web server.

So, what you need is a machine that has WiFi connectivity plus GPIO plus a few components. I'd suggest that you can do this with a Raspberry Pi plus a small WiFi adapter.

Using Amazon.co.uk pricing:

  Raspberry Pi Model B:       £42.89
  Raspberry Pi Power Supply:   £3.95
  Edimax WiFi Adapter:         £8.15
  Some LEDs + resistors (est.) £2.00
  ----------------------------------
                              £56.99

Which is $90. Of course, if you have any of these things (like an old USB WiFi adapter) you can cut the cost further. Or you can do as I do (see link above) and reuse old equipment. My bus monitoring project was done for the cost of the LED display from SparkFun ($12.95).

And the Pi has a lot of power to do other stuff. I have other ambient stuff in my house running off a single Raspberry Pi plus it's doing CCTV motion detection as well.

amazing point of view. Loved it.

Like many things, the rain is great when you don't have obligations.

When you do, it's frustrating in many ways.

Easy for you to say - you're not made of icing sugar.

Seriously, though, I have a compact umbrella that fits nicely inside my backpack. I leave it there all the time, so I don't have to worry about whether it's going to rain.

If it's cold out and you're wearing cotton, you're going to have a bad time. If your socks get soaked inside your boots and social conventions do not allow you to remove them, you're going to have a bad time. If you need to travel more than a mile and cannot afford the luxury of a car, you're going to have a bad time.

Alternatively, you could bring an umbrella.

You clearly are not a dog walker. Us dog walkers get pretty tired of getting wet all the time, and trying to dry off a wet dog insistent on shaking his soggy hair all over you is extra motivation to make that last 100 yard sprint home when you see a downpour coming...