Droplet: Productivity Tracking and the Internet of Things
Posted on April 18, 2015 in Productivity
(last edited on February 15, 2023 at 12:27 pm)
(last edited on February 15, 2023 at 12:27 pm)
I got some email about Droplet, a physical button that you can stick to something to track when you’ve done something. The great thing about this is that instead of having to haul out your smart phone, you put the button in the environment you are working in and press it to signal you have finished. For location-based activities, this is great for developing habits. It uses some kind of hub to work with multiple buttons, and there is apparently a smart phone app that can remind you when you forget to do things.
It’s a little pricey at $79 for one button and one hub, but you can check it out on their Kickstarter page. I am a big fan of context-based workflow, so embrace your inner lab rat, develop some habits!
2 Comments
Its $39 (EB) for one button/one hub; $79 (EB) gets you three buttons/one hub. Still not cheap, and those are Early Bird prices so add $10 if you miss those.
I like the idea a lot – but these prices are pretty steep, and the buttons only last a year (no user serviceable battery). For it to be really useful I’d want to be able to have many of these, and have the batteries be replaceable. Not to mention how to cope if the cloud service vanishes in future.
There are some kinks to work out, but an interesting IoT idea.
Yah, it’s fascinating! I backed it just now at the $39 level just to see an example of it, though I’d rather have 3 buttons. It’s a bummer that the batteries are not user-replaceable, though perhaps they will get to the point where they are cheap.
It would be nice to see a greater internet-of-things signaling protocol develop in the open hardware markets. There are some industries like education technology and museum exhibit suppliers that use similar signaling technology, albeit at a higher price with proprietary software that’s hard to get into.