How to Use the Internet of Things to Fight Slumlords

Google's Nest thermostat makes it easy to save money by automatically turning down the heat when you're not around. But many people don't have the luxury of controlling their own temperature settings, let alone the money to buy expensive gadgets that can do it automatically. But now a group of civic-minded hackers is using the Internet of Things to at least help these folks keep their apartments warm.

Google's Nest thermostat makes it easy to save money by automatically turning down the heat when you're not around. But many people don't have the luxury of controlling their own temperature settings, let alone the money to buy expensive gadgets that can do it automatically. But now a group of civic-minded hackers is using the Internet of Things to at least help these folks keep their apartments warm.

To guard the safety and health of tenants, New York and many other cities require landlords to keep inside temperatures above a certain level from October until May. But not all building owners and managers follow the rules. Each year, heating complaints are either the number one or number two most frequent complaint to New York’s government services and information line, 3-1-1, says Tom Hunter, the spokesperson for a volunteer effort called Heat Seek NYC, citing data from the site NYC OpenData.

"Last year alone, 3-1-1 received 200,000 plus heating complaint calls," he says. "Many more tenants go without heat and don't call 3-1-1, so we don't know exactly how many people are directly affected each year."

Tenants can sue landlords over this, but historically, they've had to rely on their own hand written records of how cold their apartments get. And these records haven't always held up in court. Heat Seek NYC hopes solve that problem by building internet-connected heat sensors to monitor the conditions of apartment buildings in order to provide a reliable, objective record that tenants and advocacy groups can use in court.

>New York and many other cities require landlords to keep inside temperatures above a certain level from October until May.

Heat Seek NYC founders William Jeffries and Tristan Siegel met earlier this year at The Flatiron School , one of many "code bootcamps" popping up around the country to teach students the basics of programming in a matter of months. As he said in a recent interview, Jeffries thought a web app for recording and reporting apartment temperatures using a programmable sensor device called Twine would make a good class project, and Siegel jumped at the idea. He liked it because his mother is a social worker who had many clients who had issues with their landlords keeping the heat too low. They've built two prototypes, and with the help of Siegel's mother, they've already put a few in real apartment buildings.

One of the obvious limitations to such a scheme is the need for internet access. The team overcame this limitation by creating a system that depends on two different devices: cells and hubs. Cells are distributed throughout the building, and report their data back to the hub, which then transmits all of the data to the web. The cells can all connect locally with each other and to the hub, so only one tenant needs to have access to the internet to provide connectivity to the hub. In cases where there's no one in the building that can provide internet access for the hub, Heat Seek NYC will provide a free WiFi hotspot.

Now the team is now trying to mass produce the devices, which is now based on lower cost components instead of the Twine, so that they can be affordably placed in many more buildings. To do that, they're raising funds on a Kickstarter. If you back the project on Kickstarter, Heat Seek NYC will send you one of its bundles so that you can monitor your own house or apartment and use the money to build devices that will go into low income apartment buildings throughout New York City. The group has already nearly reached their minimum goal of $10,000, but they're hoping to raise $50,000 in order to place Heat Seeker systems in 1,000 New York apartment buildings.

For now, the project is completely volunteer. "We are committed to using open hardware and software, so there's really no IP to protect," Hunter says. "We'll only pursue company formation if we need to do so to qualify for capital." In the short term, the project hopes to be sponsored by an existing 501(c)(3) non-profit so it can remain a volunteer effort. The plan is to eventually branch out into other cities, and the founders hope the project can do more than just force landlords into turning up the heat. As they point out, it could also help landlords identify areas of heat loss inside buildings. And that could ultimately drive their power bills back down.