Thermodo hits Kickstarter, a tiny hardware thermometer for iPhone, iPad or iPod touch

Thermodo has just hit Kickstarter and it is a tiny accessory that allows you to accurately take the temperature of the ambient air around you. Developed by the Robocat team who already have great apps in the App Store like Haze and Thermo and now they want to take that a step further with a miniature hardware thermometer that plugs into your devices 3.5mm audio jack.

Thermodo consists of a passive temperature sensor built into a standard 4 pole audio jack enclosed by a sturdy housing. This allows your mobile device to read Thermodo's temperature straight from the audio input. Thermodo sends an audio signal through the temperature sensor. This sensor will then attenuate the signal amplitude depending on the actual temperature.This attenuation can now be detected on the microphone input and through software we calculate the corresponding temperature. Easy peasy! We call this the Thermodo Principle. Simply plug Thermodo into your device and start the companion app or any other Thermodo enabled apps of your choice. The temperature reading takes place instantly. Thermodo is powered by your device. No external power is required, it can even run in the background while you do important stuff.

Thermodo gives you instant accurate access to the temperature indoors and outdoors and you can even set it to log temperatures in the background so you can see thermal profiles of your home and find out when you are wasting energy overheating your home.

The Thermodo is tiny and comes as a two part key chain; simply pull it apart and insert the temperature sensor into your devices 3.5mm audio jack. All power is taken from your device so there is no need to charge or replace batteries in the Thermodo.

If you would like to help the Thermodo project to become a reality it needs your pledges on Kickstarter. A pledge starting from $19 will get you a black model should they make it into production. The project needs to reach a funding total of $35K to enable the Robocat team to take the next step. Personally I really like the look of this project and I will be backing it. As I work in the Air Conditioning industry, the ability to take accurate temperature reading with my phone would be a great feature to carry with me.

What do you think of the Thermodo?

Source: Kickstarter

chrisoldroyd

UK editor at iMore, mobile technology lover and air conditioning design engineer.