Getting physical aka physical buttons

Ah yeah good luck! Definitely let us know. :slight_smile:

Got it today. So far,

  1. It is not the color I ordered
  2. The battery was stone dead
  3. I had to put the new battery in and out 4 times before it started up correctly
  4. It wouldn’t connect to my phone until the umpteenth try.

So I’m not too impressed yet… we’ll see how things go when I start to actually use it for something.

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Yikes that is a bummer.

Flic finally got back to me and told me to upgrade my Android OS version even though the Flic app told me not to. So I did that and the Flic app is still telling me to not upgrade the OS version. But I was finally able to get one to pair to my phone…

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This looks interesting, if you’re into physical buttons and visual cues https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/saent-be-less-distracted#/

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Cool! Relatedly, if all you want is to send visual signals I highly recommend https://blink1.thingm.com/. I use it for pomodoros at work controlled by a really janky script.

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Looks interesting! I think i may have gone a step further: vibration :slight_smile:
I have the following sequence: Trello card is moved to “Done” list => triggers an IFTTT event => adds a data point on Beeminder & sends an IFTTT/iOS notification => The iOS notification is also shown on my Garmin vivoactive watch which vibrates to show the notification. It’s a bit like the Internet confirming “Yes, you did in fact do this just now” :slight_smile:

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Closing the loop here on Flic…

So I’ve finally got everything sorted out and they work pretty well. My original purpose in buying them was to make Beeminding my morning routine easier, since it is tedious to enter data when I don’t have my cell phone. It doesn’t do great at that unfortunately – the warning light that data wasn’t transmitted is itself not very reliable.

For Beeminding stuff at my desk at work it hasn’t ever dropped any data. So it is convenient compared to pulling out the app, but IMHO not worth the money for that.

The adhesive seems good! I am happy with how well it sticks to my kyusu: https://www.dropbox.com/s/pu0ocjzcst1svez/2016-01-21%2010.33.37.jpg

So I think overall if you are okay with short range and don’t anticipate needing to talk to their customer support it works pretty well.

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What did you need to do to get it working? Your last update suggested something about updating the Android OS version. Is that what you did?

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It did end up being that I needed to upgrade the OS version despite the app warning me to NOT upgrade the OS version.

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:laughing: Flic only just now replied to an email I sent them on December 13. Seriously, wat? I promise this is my last post about them. I just can’t even believe it. Caveat emptor.

Just got a newsletter from IFTTT and they have an Amazon Echo channel.
Saying any phrase of your choice can trigger anything.
Could be interesting for people looking for a “something physical” trigger to Beeminder

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“Alexa, beer me” should both deliver a beer and increment my drink counter Do Less goal

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I just ordered a couple of these “Wireless-Remote-Control-Bluetooth-Phone-Camera-Shutter-For-Selfie-Stick-Monopod” for 99c each from China on Ebay:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/201483591479
(Other colors and sellers are available.)

They will probably require some software to connect them to Beeminder somehow, but that shouldn’t be too hard to work out.

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Cool! Keep us posted??

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About getting physical, I started another topic on integrations I would love, but I wanted to mention two of them here:

http://www.flosstime.com/

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New one:
https://sen.se/peanuts/ (scroll down to “peanut button”)
It says “shipping starts in spring 2016” so maybe around the corner.

(@insti, any update on the 99-cent bluetooth buttons you bought?)

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Just learned about the 1btn, which is cheap and hackable: https://www.crowdsupply.com/knewron/1btn

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They’ve arrived, but I’ve not had time to do anything with them yet.

Recently bought a deskcycle and looking into adding a Misfit to it for tracking :slight_smile:

By the way the Misfit can act as a physical button, connected to IFTTT with 4 different types of pressing

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Just to report that Misfit works lovely as a physical button to Beeminder through IFTTT
I’ve connected a double press click on the Misfit to add a datapoint on my 7’ workout goal. The IF app also sends a notification that the recipe run so I have confirmation that the click was recorded.

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