Hey Slashdotters
Thanks for all the comments - I truly love seeing the reaction to this post about the (my) ISS-Above.
I just want you all to know I appreciate everything each one of you has said about me and about the ISS-Above. Very entertaining (and in many cases - a very appropriate reaction to a rather specialized and expensive device).
I'm not responding here to try to persuade any of you to have a different opinion. I do however want to at least speak to some of the misunderstandings that I see here - for the benefit of others who find this post and would otherwise be left with a very skewed view of what the device is (I wonder how many actually took the time to view the video?).
Firstly I built this device initially simply as something to give to my grandkids in England in December (I selfishly want my grandkids to see me as "the cool grandpa"). Instead of a "star" or "fairy" sitting on the top of their Christmas tree my grand-kids had an ISS-Above . They were all pretty excited to get one (and still are)
The point is the device makes a fuss whenever the ISS is above your horizon. It's not just about letting you know when it is visible. It flashes in the day-time - in the middle of the night (it apparently scares some peoples dogs/cats when it goes off in the middle of the night).
For me - this is about drawing attention to the fact we have this incredible feat of human achievement - the only permanently manned human outpost in space - and that it's above your location way more often than you actually even knew. So it's about inspiring awareness - and also about inspiring young kids to take a look at the incredibly versatile Single Board Computer paradigm (the Raspberry Pi).
Those free apps are all awesome (I have ALL OF THEM - plus some paid ones too) but they just don't do it for me. They take too much "care and feeding" for me to actually use consistently.. and I don't need yet another app on my phone that beeps and buzzes to let me know something else. The ISS-Above sits on a shelf - in your house / office / coffee shop and simply does it's job of reminding you (and anyone who can see it) when the ISS is passing by. Anyone within sight of it can see it. It inspires a greater understanding of and appreciation for what we are doing in space (this confirmed from lots of feedback and comments I have received from users of the ISS-Above all around the world).
One other thing the ISS-Above does is that it also autotweets whenever the ISS comes particularly close to your location. That's also a CRITICAL part of my vision. This is a two-way thing - it's both to have us down here be more present to the wonderful stuff going on in orbit - plus it's also to show NASA and all the astronauts up there how we KNOW they are there and appreciate what they are doing. NASA Johnson (mission control for the ISS) actually asked me to make sure the tweets tag them.
That autotweet can be customized. Now that I have shipped nearly 300 units worldwide there are a lot of tweets going out "to" the space station every day. I think of it like a world-wide wave to the space station. Check some of them out at http://twitter.com/issaboveyou
When I started building this I had NO expectation that ANYONE would find it particularly useful or interesting enough to buy one. There was some press about the device (e.g. Reddit / Hackaday / Universetoday / CNET / TWiT.tv) and I started to get emails and questions from people who said they wanted one. That's when I was persuaded to create a Kickstarter. It surprised the heck out of me when I found out how many people wanted one. All the Kickstarter orders have been shipped (probably the fastest Kickstarter fulfillment in history) and including orders I received after the Kickstarter closed there are close to 300 units worldwide now.
So - yes - the ISS-Above may not be for you. But then I never built it for "YOU".... I built it for my own wickedly selfish reasons and it just so happens my vision does actually match with quite a few other people around the world who happen to share that same vision.
Next version that is in Beta right now pushes out the live HD video feed from the ISS via the Raspberry Pi's HDMI port whenever it is in daylight. That becomes especially relevant during a daytime pass over your location. The ISS-Above does it's flashy/blinky thing and you also get to watch it pass OVER your location at the same time (most Apps concentrate only on visible passes at Night - so you would miss this). NEAT? I think so! I also superimpose additional data about the ISS over that video (so it becomes even more useful than the straight Ustream video from NASA.
Finally a little factual correction. I have no idea where the price of $150 comes from.. The PiGlow version is $130 now (during the Kickstarter it was $125). If you already have a Raspberry Pi you can get the SD card for it at $42.
That's it for now. If you want to find out more - or have any additional questions or observations you want to share I would be happy to answer them.
Liam Kennedy
ISSAbove.com
