Hmm . . . hardware hacking . . .

The computery nerds of you know what this is. For everyone else, it means building machines and computers from their components. It's kind of like the leggo of the electronic world - and it's not as difficult as it sounds.

This is the reason why I want you to get excited about hardware hacking,

Imagine the earth was a patient in a hospital. The patient would be covered in sensors that measure important things: sensors that measure heart rate, blood oxygen levels, and brain activity. All the data would be displayed on a screen that updates instantly without delay. The doctors would be able to immediately know what was going with the patient by looking at the devices. They would be notified with a sudden noise and flash of light if the sensors noticed something was wrong.

If we can care for a human patient in a hospital to such detail, why can’t we do this for our planet?

We can.

Why does the planet need you to start hardware hacking?

1. We need more data

There is a chronic lack of data available on our environmental footprint. We don’t know how much water we use, what the air pollution levels are on our street, or how much trash we make. Even whole cities and states can struggle to collect this data and make it findable.

We need more data on all environmental and social issues so that we can take advantage of the many powerful behavior-change and gamification techniques required to make change happen.

These techniques such as disclosure, leaderboards, social comparison, feedback loops and progress bars really do work and data is intrinsic to their design.

You know what they say, “If you can’t measure it, it probably doesn’t exist”. You have to be able to measure what you want to change if you are going to change anything at all. You can help gather this data using sensors in your hardware hacking project.

2. We need the data to be collected in more granular detail

Data is often collected by the EPA or state departments, but there are very few programs that collect data on granular parameters such as individual, business or household.

This lack of detail is robbing us from using several important behavioral drivers for change.

Firstly, if we can’t find the data for our own home, college, business etc, then we can’t compete with our own score to make progress. We also can’t understand our own score in context of our neighbors or competitors. We can’t generate heat maps that show which location a city should focus their change-campaign on.

Many of the new opportunities in smart cities are being explored by startups (such as WaterSmart, APIS, Air Quality Egg and Loadman Scales) all of which are gathering more granular data. It’s very difficult to harness behavior change tools if we can’t see the detail. For example, we don’t know where the heat sinks or the pollution pockets are in a city without sensors collecting data on every street.

3. We need it in real time

We need data to be collected continually, in real time. The immediacy of data is important so we can see the effects of our changes on it - it’s called a feedback loop. Like a Fitbit, or even a Facebook chat, it needs to work in real time in order to maintain our motivation.

A study conducted on Opower by Associate Professor Todd Rogers from Harvard University showed that there was a marked spike in energy efficiency by residents after seeing the Opower chart in their electricity bill. But their efforts dropped off within a few days, going back to normal for the rest of the month. This case study shows us that we need a continual feedback loop of the data in order to keep our motivation on fleek.

4. We need the data in a database

A lot of data is trapped in PDF documents and excel spreadsheets. This is partly because much data in the past was collected manually by humans and not machines.

These formats cannot be read by web applications. Data needs to be stored in the form of an SQL or Mongo style of database that is callable from a web server. Imagine that someone wants to build an app that tracks the flow on energy efficient vehicles, or map the pollution levels of lakes across the country, but the only data they can find is in a PDF. This is a huge stumbling block for the app developer.  

The more hardware hackers and scientists automate their data flow into databases, the more app developers will be able to more easily develop projects that can help solve environmental problems.

5. We need it to be cheaper

One of the main constraints holding back the evolution of smart cities and widespread disclosure of data . . . is cost. Sensors cost money and if we need a lot of them, that might be a big bill.

We can go a long way though with DIY. When I looked for a wifi-enabled trash scale, I found a company that would custom make one for $2,500. I made it myself from the parts, with some help from a friend, for under $100.

6. Hardware hacking enables behavior change and gamification

You can apply gamification techniques to your hardware project as a way to boost the motivation of the people you are trying to influence. In my video course “Save the World with Gamification” I teach 15 gamification techniques that center around the use of real world data like we’ve discussed in this article. You’ll be getting this data from the sensors you use. If your project is going to be used by several people or groups, then gamification can be a powerful tool to make real and measurable change come true.