Doormats get a bad rap. They take all the dirt we can wipe off on them, withstand tremendous weight, let our dogs urinate on them. And when doormats get very dirty or very old, their owners don’t even bother to clean them; they throw them away and lay new ones out. But a South Carolinian inventor, Andrew Clark, has created a doormat you won’t want to throw away… because it’s very very smart.
SmartMat smart doormat: image via kickstarter.com
The SmartMat is a WiFi gadget intended to be placed underneath your doormat and function to provide alerts as to what transpires on top of it. It recognizes people and pets by weight.
Is there a package at your door? SmartMat will know that, especially by
the length of time it sits on your doormat. Has someone taken the
package? SmartMat will know that too.
SmartMat identifies a package on its surface: image via kickstarter.com
Rover wants to go out
SmartMat will know if someone is coming into or leaving the house. This is great information to have if you have an elderly person in your home who might wander. Or you happen to have a teenager with a curfew.
Grandma is leaving the house: image via kickstarter.com
How will you learn all this? You program the SmartMat to send you a Twitter! Or an email alert. Or a text message.
Monitor SmartMat through Twitter: image via kickstarter.com
But that’s not all. The SmartMat can even be programmed to turn on inside lights when you enter the house, and, if you like, turn them off when you leave.
SmartMat can turn lights on and off: image via kickstarter.com
Other items, like household temperature settings, can be programmed as well. If you place a SmartMat under a cushion in your living room, it can even be programmed to turn on the TV when you sit down, and turn it off when you stand up. This is a really handy SmartMat.
Right now, Clark’s SmartMat is up on Kickstarter looking for a relatively small amount of funding to get started. Learn more about it here.
Kickstarter via PFSK
