Using a couple sensors and a Particle.io Photon, I made a hamster tracking system with a pretty front end for anyone to check up on.

The Sensor

Particle.io makes a tiny wifi-connected chip that makes it easy to have your data available instantly in the Cloud. Using the Particle Shield Shield and a Grove Starter Kit shield, I connected temperature sensor and a magnet sensor to my Particle Photon. I put two magnets on the wheel to interact with the sensor.

The Code

I created a screencast of how to set up your own hamster tracker. This video explains how to use Particle’s websocket publishing command as well as open device variables to the Cloud.

Data is useless without some way to visualize it, so I’ve also taught how to use Keen.io to upload your data for easy querying.

The Site

Using Keen.io’s templates and a few interesting queries, I’ve created a Jekyll site that displays the hamster’s recent running history. Particle.io’s code lets me receive live temperature and speed/distance data as well. See the website and the GitHub source code

Hamster Tracker