Our first user’s apartment is showing tons of violations. It’s amazing that even this late in the heating season we’re still showing such a huge problem. Its hard to imagine living in such a frigid apartment, and his readings are only underscoring how difficult it is for tenants to resolve the problem. Now we really need to get deployed, since we’re missing readings whenever William’s computer is shut down. It’s been extremely difficult getting to production in such a short amount of time, but its so frustrating that every time William’s computer dies or he loses internet access, we stop collecting readings from our user. Once we’re fully deployed, the sensor will be able to take readings regardless of whether William’s computer is up and running, since the data will feed into a server instead of directly onto his laptop.
First User
We’ve officially got a sensor in our first apartment! We won’t post the user’s name due to confidential, but he lives in the south Bronx. He has struggled with inadequate heat in his home for some time, and we were lucky to connect with him through Tristan’s mom to install a sensor in his apartment. He doesn’t have internet access, so we set it up with 3G using a Clearbox. We think many of our future tenants will lack reliable wifi, so it was important to us that the sensors be designed to work regardless of whether tenants have an internet connection. Using 3G is a bit more costly, since we have to pay for a data plan, but it means that tenants should be able to use the sensors without fear that they’ll miss readings if their internet goes out. Thanks to the Flatiron School for paying for our hardware!
It Works!
We’ve got the web app working locally in development mode! It’s amazing how quickly you can get something done when you’ve got a fantastic team.
Now we just need to figure out how to deploy the thing to production so William can turn off his laptop without bringing the whole site down.