Seems like a pretty cool product. They have an amazing design and a beautifully done website too. Only thing I am a bit concerned about is the price. It costs 222 USD for a base unit and 4 cookies (sensors).
Here's a video from CES2014 about it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=024OPHSgOqo
I could find almost nothing on this thread to agree with. None of the other comments here make sense. I have high respect for HN community but this page make me doubt it. Why should we discuss the name? Apple, Windows - aren't they funny product names? How does it matter? What matters is a new product is launching - our community's criticism should help the product owner. If there are things that we believe won't work - give reasons. Appreciate what's good about it. Name, too, can be criticized but don't make fun out of it. Somebody has worked so hard on making that product a reality; respect that hardwork.
What I like about the product is the very idea. And also the way they have explained it on the website, the graphics, text everything. Really appreciable.
First I've heard of it, but I had the same reaction as Cringley. Maybe it's an age thing.
"Imagine v1 of Big Brother's -- or NSA director Keith Alexander's -- most inflamed fever dream: a sensorbot shaped like a Russian nesting doll wearing a Hindi-cow smile. Then terrifyingly name it "Mother" and build it specifically to monitor as many facets of your personal life as it can. Are you schvitzing yet?"
I can't dispute the age thing, given that I'm in the oldest 5 or 10% of the community according to the various age polls we've had over the years, but my reaction (not having read Cringley's review) was, "Can this thing get any creepier? Oh, look; it can."
I'm in the older age group and afaik so is Cringley since he's been around forever (if it's still him writing under that name.) I thought, well, maybe the kids will like it.
The writer is not Mark Stephens, the PBS Cringely whose name is the first Google hit, but a current InfoWorld staff writer. I suspect they would share this opinion, though.
I'm relieved it doesn't seem to be an age thing. I have a nephew in his 20's who doesn't care at all about privacy and happily gives away all his data, so sometimes I wonder.
I know people here in Germany, far older than my 35 who give away every single bit of their privacy (and in that the privacy of their communication-partners).
For example: We have the so called "Spackeria" a post privacy movement, that arguments for not only willingly omitting every form of privacy, but to be brutally open/honest about everything in your life - and they really seem to mean everything.
And I know of people in their early twenties caring strongly. So no, it does not seem to be an age thing, but more of a ideology thing.
There are certain stylistic choices a writer can make that labels him as an instant idiot in my world. I chose not to read that link in full due to the word chosen here.
This is the lowest rated comment I ever got (in terms of downvoting).
For future visitors of this place, my expanded rationale:
"schvitzing" automagically reads like "schwitzen" (to sweat) to this German reader. Looking that word up on the net ([1], leads to [2]) results in either German or Yiddish origins and confirms that it is just that, just .. referenced in a weird way.
Not knowing the author and his background I assume that this was chosen for effect - and I despise choices like that. I'm among the least patriotic people you'll meet, but if you're going to make jokes about $SomeEvilScenario and make it sound more .. legit, funny, interesting, believable by adding some sort-of-German-word-or-phrase you are not a writer, you're a fool, an idiot in my world.
That author chose, according to what I can see, a 'German' (or Yiddish, doesn't change my opinion really) phrase to describe something scary. That's low. I wasn't a fan of that source before this article, but I won't visit it ever after.
I like how open-ended this thing is. I wonder if the market is actually ready to move beyond domain-specific sensor hardware and in to something broader. The aesthetic isn't quite my taste, but I'm very curious to see how their users react.
I think this is really cool and definitely brings us closer to the Internet of Things. I don't think I would have anthropomorphized the system by calling it "Mother" and putting an eerie LED smiley face on the base station.
I can't seem to find any technical info on the "cookies". Are they similar to the technology in the Fitbit Flex, ie Bluetooth Smart coupled with some sort of accelerometer. If that's the case, do the cookies need to be charged every week. This remains the single massive downside to widespread adoption of such devices.
Apparently they capture movement and temperature, and they can detect when they are near their mother or not, they can store up to ten days worth of data, and they have a one year battery life, using cell batteries. Not rechargeable from what I gather.
As a young person who wants to remember to take her pills, to cut down on her soda consumption, to track how much she exercises (and maybe turn it into a game of walking further every week), and no doubt some more that I can't think of right now, this product sounds like it'd be amazing.
The video is a brilliant marketing asset. It showed me some very real problems of mine, and how it could help me solve them (by tracking things that I want to, and gamifying them).
The only issue is cost. As a young, single person, £166 is prohibitively expensive. It's likely not worth it for me. Is it worth it for people with families and kids? If they had £166 to spend, could they find something more pressing to spend it on?
This comment is fantastic! The trend in pointless analytics is annoying and isn't solving any real problems.
All the ‘problems’ Mother solves are not really problems and it doesn’t seem to serve any truly useful purpose.
Wakeup times - Already solved by the alarm on your clock.
Managing drink consumption - Drink more or less than you currently do.
Staying fit/active - Go workout/exercise once a day.
Step tracking - One of the more silly trends lately. Does it honestly matter how many steps you took today? No, not really.
Pill taking - A weekly pill container solves this already for a few dollars and is old person friendly.
Check-ins - Have your kid text/call you when they arrive home. Can’t use a phone? Don’t leave them alone.
Brushing teeth - Does anyone here not brush their teeth? Anyone at all? Guess that problem doesn’t really exist.
Temperature - Look at your thermostat. If you really care, go buy some nest products, they got you covered.
This product tries to make you feel like you have no idea what is going on in your everyday life (but don’t worry, they can help!). You have your own daily pattern and I guarantee you know what happens in it already. Don’t get me wrong, this thing has potential in other specialized areas but for its intended purpose and what most people will end up using it for, it’ just more gadget bloat.
Many people have little to no idea how much alcohol they really drink each week.
Pill management is considerably more tricky than that for some people - especially if there are young people in the house. Some medications have strict and weird requirements to when and how they're taken.
Unless you put a tracker on every bottle you own and the ones at the bar, this won't solve the drinking issue.
As for pill management, I'm not sure what problems you are talking about with young people but I do know the issue with pills. I currently live with an elderly couple that have to take a huge amount of different pills. They just use multiple weekly pill bottles with a time/requirement note. Cheap and non-complicated to work with.
More seriously, I think you're being way too dismissive. The same train of logic could apply to any tech advances we've had. Email? Use letters. Smartphones? Use a proper computer. Social networks? Use a paper address book. Do you feel the same about those?
Compliance is a big problem for medicine. Motivating people (nay, yourself) to be active is a problem. Keeping track of shopping/groceries is a problem in a busy or shared house.
Whether they are enough of a problem to build a business around is another question.
I disagree that the same train of logic could be applied to other big tech advances. The pieces of tech you stated are better than the alternative by leaps and bounds. They all reduce the time (and money) it takes to communicate by huge margins.
For medication, I can only speak from personal experience and I could be completely off base. As far as motivation, my active friends don't use/care about fitness apps and my inactive friends can't be bothered to use the bloody things anyway. Obviously this all comes back to personal experience and I would love to be proved wrong (always interesting seeing a product/service you think is crap get huge) but until it takes off I am skeptical of its actual value
It's for your inactive friends who want to become active.
One of the things that you'll notice if you go to /r/loseit is how obsessively weight losers will measure everything. It's a way to keep themselves focused and accountable.
I can see the uses for this, just, as many people are saying, very creepy branding.
The teeth brushing thing is aimed at parents. Children can be very difficult when it comes to encouraging them to brush their teeth, either forgetting or lying, etc.
The encouragement aspect seems to be the most promising I won't deny that. I hated brushing as a kid, and tricked my parents into thinking I did. Kids are smart, if they don't want to brush and know all they have to do is shake the thing to make it look like they are brushing, they will.
Comes down to playing a more active role in their life instead of just tracking their activities.
I think it will track how long it's been shaken, right?
After tricking you for a week by shaking the brush for 1-2min, perhaps it'll form enough of a habit that going to actual brushing won't be as hard (we tend to be attached to the things we hold more often).
Kids think they're fooling you but the joke's on them...
Exactly, if you could fool it by picking it up and putting it back, that'd be one thing. But otherwise if you're forced the stand there shaking it for a couple of minutes, you might as well be brushing your teeth.
> All the ‘problems’ Mother solves are not really problems and it doesn’t seem to serve any truly useful purpose.
Having just returned home from visiting my grandmother a few moments before I looked at this, the first thing that jumped out at me was "Did you take your pills?"
Fortunately, she is in good health but, like most elderly folks, I imagine, has a number of medications that she takes. Some are taken once a day, others twice, and there might even be some taken more frequently.
I, myself, am still in "recovery mode" after being on the losing end of a head-on motorcycle vs. Jeep collision. I'm not several different medications any more but I was for a good while and it was difficult for me to keep track of them.
I'll grant you that there are alternative solutions to these problems -- a family member who lives with my grandmother simply writes down (on paper!) when she takes what, for example, and you mentioned another (weekly pill container) -- but for the busy/active/always on-the-go person, I can certainly see them filling a need.
"Okay, now I want to bring it back home. My mother's eighty-one. She doesn't get around as easily as she once did. A year ago she broke her hip, and since then I've been concerned about her. I asked her to have some security cameras installed, so I could access them on a closed circuit, but she refused. But now I have piece of mind. Last weekend, while she was napping--"
A wave of laughter rippled through the audience.
"Forgive! Forgive me!" he said, "I had no choice. She wouldn't have let me do it otherwise. So I snuck in, and I installed cameras in every room. They're so small she'll never notice. I'll show you really quick. Can we show cameras 1 to 5 in my mom's house?"
A grid of images popped up, including his mom, padding down a bright hallway in a towel. A roar of laughter erupted.
"Oops. Let's drop that one." The image disappeared. "Anyway. The point is I know she's safe, and that gives me a sense of peace. As we all know here at the Circle, transparency leads to peace of mind."
when I needed to take some pills the combination of a smartphone reminder prompt to take pills, making part of my morning routine and pillbox divided by day (which mostly helped me remember if I'd already taken them) worked for me.
My grandmother who, like many older people takes many different pills, gets an advanced version of the pillbox direct from the pharmacy, with all her various pills combined into a giant blister pack according to her own schedule for taking them.
> Managing drink consumption - Drink more or less than you currently do.
You know that the human mind doesn't work like that -- mine doesn't, at any rate. Reminders, bribes, little games played around chores, those things tend to work.
Gamification is a powerful motivator. People will start jog/brush teeth, similarly to answering questions on stackoverflow. It doesn't work on everybody, but it works.
A bit snarky, but I get your point, absolutely. These problems are solvable today, and I'm working on them. I was mostly pointing out that the price is completely out of my range, as I see this as "something to help".
We both agree that this is unnecessary; but it's at a price point which makes it seem that the creators think it's a necessity. There's a great many more useful things I could buy with £166.
Does anyone know how the signals are being sent from the cookie to Mother? The company mentioned in a CES video that they werent using the traditional bluetooth, wifi, etc.
The webpage mentions 915 MHz (America) / 868 MHz (Europe) radio. This is a part of ISM band and the most popular radio for low power internet of things. There are some microcontrollers with those radios integrated, for example TI CC430. As far as I recall, there is no standardised protocol stack on top of that.
That was a really poor choice of a name. It took me less than 10 seconds to start hearing Pink Floyd's "Mother" [1] in my head. Once that started happening, I just couldn't stay objective while looking at the pitch.
The sync module reminds me of the Nabaztag ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabaztag ) and I wondered whether Mother was going to have signals and indicators so that you didn't have to use a mobile device for insight.
That's the first thing I thought about and when I saw above that Sense was a French company, I thought it might actually be related. Well, it is: https://sen.se/about/who/
I played with this at CES. The "mother" bot is basically just a router. The little things only sense motion, and when I asked the lady said they had no plans to add any other types of sensitivity - temperature, moisture, light, current, etc. Compared with the other 'internet of things' kits out there battling for visibility, this one doesn't seem original or more useful, only visually striking. The tags are also pretty big for what they do. A useful thing for $50 maybe to buy once, but really doesn't seem like a worthwhile 'ecosystem' to buy into in any big way.
Also, I was unhappy to learn upon close inspection that the face is a sticker.
Really? I asked specifically about temperature and the lady said nope. Maybe she wasn't aware. Well at any rate I take that bit back. But I still think these things are multiplying and buying into this one would be extremely premature.
I'm sure they debated adding light sensors, but perhaps they figure that adopters of this may have also adopted wifi connected lights which could be built into the software.
That makes sense. The bias which affects the measurements of MEMS based gyroscopes and accelerometers, has a temperature dependent component. Because of this the two sensor is commonly packaged together with temperature sensing elements. Since it's already there on the IMU chip, why not use it?
Also, it seemed to me that the dichotomy set up in BNW is that "natural is good and right, artificial or new is bad" - one that has soured me on Huxley basically since when I first read it.
The author commented on that in his foreword of later editions of the book. He said something along the lines that if he was writing the novel later in his life, the dichotomy wouldn't be as pointed.
A couple standing in front of an ATM, she ovviously pregnant, on the screen there is an image of a house, speech bubble "Oh! How does it know we were thinking of moving to a bigger home?"
Saw this on a wall in the conference room of an ATM maker, about 10 years ago...
Agreed. The branding is terrible. There are other in this space it seems...similar but not exactly the same: "Twine", and "Ninjablocks. my favorite is Tally http://www.tallyyourworld.com but it's not out yet.
I laughed out loud when I read "Did you take your pills? Mother knows everything." +1 for zeitgeist, embedded systems seem to be very popular these days, but this is a real product
I honestly couldn't tell if this was a real product or some sort of parody at first. I half expected it to be produced by Aperture Science. I don't blame you.
I don't think the issue is the data collection. I think most of us here would admit that slicing and dicing data about yourself is fun (e.g. see [1]) and that an unobtrusive tool to help collect that data is a good idea. The problem is their deliberate overt anthropomorphism. I'm perfectly comfortable with a system for recording data points about my life in some database on my computer, I'm significantly less comfortable with someone monitoring me and telling me about my life.
The branding of this is either creepy or crazy. Maybe it's a bit of both. But I'm certainly not going to forget it, and the idea itself seems pretty interesting.
If this gets popular, I wouldn't be in the slightest bit surprised if Coca Cola sues them. That logo is a very similar red, and a similar "dynamic ribbon device".
Concept is stupid as FK. Why you need sensors just to know some basic stuff such as taking pills, tracking health etc. You can use app also. All they are doing is using sensor( motion sensors in particular) and send message to your phone. So why would I spend $222 for something where I could just it with $10 reminder app ?
200 comments
[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 218 ms ] threadWhat I like about the product is the very idea. And also the way they have explained it on the website, the graphics, text everything. Really appreciable.
"Imagine v1 of Big Brother's -- or NSA director Keith Alexander's -- most inflamed fever dream: a sensorbot shaped like a Russian nesting doll wearing a Hindi-cow smile. Then terrifyingly name it "Mother" and build it specifically to monitor as many facets of your personal life as it can. Are you schvitzing yet?"
http://www.infoworld.com/t/cringely/sense-mother-may-i-the-m...
For example: We have the so called "Spackeria" a post privacy movement, that arguments for not only willingly omitting every form of privacy, but to be brutally open/honest about everything in your life - and they really seem to mean everything.
And I know of people in their early twenties caring strongly. So no, it does not seem to be an age thing, but more of a ideology thing.
See https://youtu.be/_xToQ4cIHkk if you haven't seen it.
I'm not a fan of the whole 'internet of things' to begin with, no thanks. My stuff doesn't need to track everything i do with it.
There are certain stylistic choices a writer can make that labels him as an instant idiot in my world. I chose not to read that link in full due to the word chosen here.
For future visitors of this place, my expanded rationale:
"schvitzing" automagically reads like "schwitzen" (to sweat) to this German reader. Looking that word up on the net ([1], leads to [2]) results in either German or Yiddish origins and confirms that it is just that, just .. referenced in a weird way.
Not knowing the author and his background I assume that this was chosen for effect - and I despise choices like that. I'm among the least patriotic people you'll meet, but if you're going to make jokes about $SomeEvilScenario and make it sound more .. legit, funny, interesting, believable by adding some sort-of-German-word-or-phrase you are not a writer, you're a fool, an idiot in my world.
That author chose, according to what I can see, a 'German' (or Yiddish, doesn't change my opinion really) phrase to describe something scary. That's low. I wasn't a fan of that source before this article, but I won't visit it ever after.
1: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/schvitzing 2: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/shvitz#English
I can't seem to find any technical info on the "cookies". Are they similar to the technology in the Fitbit Flex, ie Bluetooth Smart coupled with some sort of accelerometer. If that's the case, do the cookies need to be charged every week. This remains the single massive downside to widespread adoption of such devices.
If a company wants to make me use a telescreen, they might as well make it a suppository.
More seriously, the idea of using cheap motion trackers to track usage of things in the home is very interesting.
When Google acquires this, it'll make the Nest complaints pale in comparison. :)
Like this?
http://i.imgur.com/W1s9crO.jpg
In all seriousness, I feel it is only a matter of time before someone dies as a result of their home automation being hacked.
The video is a brilliant marketing asset. It showed me some very real problems of mine, and how it could help me solve them (by tracking things that I want to, and gamifying them).
The only issue is cost. As a young, single person, £166 is prohibitively expensive. It's likely not worth it for me. Is it worth it for people with families and kids? If they had £166 to spend, could they find something more pressing to spend it on?
Wakeup times - Already solved by the alarm on your clock. Managing drink consumption - Drink more or less than you currently do. Staying fit/active - Go workout/exercise once a day. Step tracking - One of the more silly trends lately. Does it honestly matter how many steps you took today? No, not really. Pill taking - A weekly pill container solves this already for a few dollars and is old person friendly. Check-ins - Have your kid text/call you when they arrive home. Can’t use a phone? Don’t leave them alone. Brushing teeth - Does anyone here not brush their teeth? Anyone at all? Guess that problem doesn’t really exist. Temperature - Look at your thermostat. If you really care, go buy some nest products, they got you covered.
This product tries to make you feel like you have no idea what is going on in your everyday life (but don’t worry, they can help!). You have your own daily pattern and I guarantee you know what happens in it already. Don’t get me wrong, this thing has potential in other specialized areas but for its intended purpose and what most people will end up using it for, it’ just more gadget bloat.
Pill management is considerably more tricky than that for some people - especially if there are young people in the house. Some medications have strict and weird requirements to when and how they're taken.
As for pill management, I'm not sure what problems you are talking about with young people but I do know the issue with pills. I currently live with an elderly couple that have to take a huge amount of different pills. They just use multiple weekly pill bottles with a time/requirement note. Cheap and non-complicated to work with.
Or better yet: Leave them alone and stop hovering. The world is safer today than it has ever been, and yet parental paranoia is at an all time high.
I don't see how it's not. Is "hi mom/dad" being disrupted by innovative technology?
More seriously, I think you're being way too dismissive. The same train of logic could apply to any tech advances we've had. Email? Use letters. Smartphones? Use a proper computer. Social networks? Use a paper address book. Do you feel the same about those?
Compliance is a big problem for medicine. Motivating people (nay, yourself) to be active is a problem. Keeping track of shopping/groceries is a problem in a busy or shared house. Whether they are enough of a problem to build a business around is another question.
For medication, I can only speak from personal experience and I could be completely off base. As far as motivation, my active friends don't use/care about fitness apps and my inactive friends can't be bothered to use the bloody things anyway. Obviously this all comes back to personal experience and I would love to be proved wrong (always interesting seeing a product/service you think is crap get huge) but until it takes off I am skeptical of its actual value
One of the things that you'll notice if you go to /r/loseit is how obsessively weight losers will measure everything. It's a way to keep themselves focused and accountable.
I can see the uses for this, just, as many people are saying, very creepy branding.
Adding more dongles to a problem doesn't fix it. Are the people who would be best served with this really sitting around with an iPad and dongles?
I'm surprised this isn't just a big joke.
Comes down to playing a more active role in their life instead of just tracking their activities.
After tricking you for a week by shaking the brush for 1-2min, perhaps it'll form enough of a habit that going to actual brushing won't be as hard (we tend to be attached to the things we hold more often).
Kids think they're fooling you but the joke's on them...
Having just returned home from visiting my grandmother a few moments before I looked at this, the first thing that jumped out at me was "Did you take your pills?"
Fortunately, she is in good health but, like most elderly folks, I imagine, has a number of medications that she takes. Some are taken once a day, others twice, and there might even be some taken more frequently.
I, myself, am still in "recovery mode" after being on the losing end of a head-on motorcycle vs. Jeep collision. I'm not several different medications any more but I was for a good while and it was difficult for me to keep track of them.
I'll grant you that there are alternative solutions to these problems -- a family member who lives with my grandmother simply writes down (on paper!) when she takes what, for example, and you mentioned another (weekly pill container) -- but for the busy/active/always on-the-go person, I can certainly see them filling a need.
A wave of laughter rippled through the audience.
"Forgive! Forgive me!" he said, "I had no choice. She wouldn't have let me do it otherwise. So I snuck in, and I installed cameras in every room. They're so small she'll never notice. I'll show you really quick. Can we show cameras 1 to 5 in my mom's house?"
A grid of images popped up, including his mom, padding down a bright hallway in a towel. A roar of laughter erupted.
"Oops. Let's drop that one." The image disappeared. "Anyway. The point is I know she's safe, and that gives me a sense of peace. As we all know here at the Circle, transparency leads to peace of mind."
My grandmother who, like many older people takes many different pills, gets an advanced version of the pillbox direct from the pharmacy, with all her various pills combined into a giant blister pack according to her own schedule for taking them.
You know that the human mind doesn't work like that -- mine doesn't, at any rate. Reminders, bribes, little games played around chores, those things tend to work.
Sure, there are other solutions to solve this problem. But I like this one.
Disagree. Old people still forget such things. Or to refill them.
I think the marketing is ultra creepy, but with a tiny bit of rebranding, I think it would be perfect to help the elderly.
Maybe add a little red cross on it and rename it "Nurse", or something.
We both agree that this is unnecessary; but it's at a price point which makes it seem that the creators think it's a necessity. There's a great many more useful things I could buy with £166.
There are also - I think - pill reminder apps & programs. At least DuckDuckGo sez so.
For soda consumption, I recommend coffee (for caffeine) and selzer water w/ lime juice for the fizzies & casual drinking.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZigBee#Radio_hardware
[1]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0HrrR9QDQU
http://www.absolutelyrics.com/lyrics/view/laurie_anderson/o_...
Also, I was unhappy to learn upon close inspection that the face is a sticker.
> Mother. Mother knows everything.
> She's like a mom, only better.
> Sense: the meaning of life®
edit: I see they are based in France, so perhaps the branding didn't translate well.
Which isn't necessarily a bad thing for the product they're selling, which is both cool and odd in a 1984 kind of way.
A couple standing in front of an ATM, she ovviously pregnant, on the screen there is an image of a house, speech bubble "Oh! How does it know we were thinking of moving to a bigger home?"
Saw this on a wall in the conference room of an ATM maker, about 10 years ago...
I don't think the issue is the data collection. I think most of us here would admit that slicing and dicing data about yourself is fun (e.g. see [1]) and that an unobtrusive tool to help collect that data is a good idea. The problem is their deliberate overt anthropomorphism. I'm perfectly comfortable with a system for recording data points about my life in some database on my computer, I'm significantly less comfortable with someone monitoring me and telling me about my life.
[1] http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2012/03/the-personal-analytic...
I don't think it is a coincidence that at least three different franchises have used "Mother Brain" as the name for their malevolent AI.
"A white Mother \ with everything you need to connect her."
Whole branding seems wrong here.
Edit: Found also "No need to pay a subscription fee to live with your Mother." on INSTALLATION page.
> Mother knows everything (in red text at that)
> She's like a mom, only better
The branding of this is either creepy or crazy. Maybe it's a bit of both. But I'm certainly not going to forget it, and the idea itself seems pretty interesting.