Here at The Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis we run a simple dashboard view of the weather in London. The background of the dashboard changes colour to a variety of pantone shades according to temperature. Via our CEDE project we are starting to experiment with the Philips Hue Wifi Lighting System. With the ability to connect the bulbs to a network and select colours according to a hex colour – the logical link was to link the bulbs to the weather data, allowing the lighting to change according to the external temperature and in sync with the web dashboard.

Philips Hue

Netatmo Weather Station
We are using the Netatmo in CASA as part of our forthcoming office data dashboard, it monitors internal temperature, humidity, sound levels and carbon dioxide with an external unit providing temperature and humidity readings.

Colour Range

If This Then That Recipes

Ships Lamp Coloured by Temperature and IFTTT
The whole system could arguably be built using an Arduino board / Raspberry Pi linked to LED’s at a much lower cost. The linking of consumer grade units to data is however perhaps a step towards smart objects for everyone. The whole set up took under two hours to get up and running, including the setting up of the IFTTT recipes and linking to the Philips Hue. Edit (20/2/2014) – the light is now installed inside an old Ships Lamp with the colour changing according to the outside temperature.
It is probably a niche market, but the linking of data to lighting is an intriguing development. From making the lights blink when carbon dioxide levels in the office rise through to changing colours according to a twitter or rss feed, we are excited by the possibilities.
The web based weather dashboard can be viewed at http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/weather/colours.html data updates every 3 seconds. We will be mounting the ‘weather bulb’ in a small globe and placing it in the corner of the office. The Philips Hue starter pack comes with three bulbs, 50 lights can be linked to each bridge. With the ability to link each bulb, or a group of bulbs, to almost any data feed, the office is about to become a colourful place…