Connected Devices

Connected Devices
Week 7: Data Analysis
Data Unknowns
Done
Important to do
Next steps depending on how much energy I can budget for this
Adding active device count to dataset
Scanning devices within Networks
Questions
Added ESPing library
Project Documentation should include,
Data Visualization
Week 6: March/04 → Post Office Hours Conclusions // Defining architecture and society within it
Human-AI Interaction ⭐️ 😮 Human-Computer Interaction ❌
To discuss with Tom
Full Stack Builder
I see the (architectural) light 🕯️
Week 6: Questions for Tom’s office hours
Office Hours with Fabri - Week 6 - March 4th, 2026
Wires
Soldering
Week 6 - Device 1 - Environmental Data with MQTT
Angles of this project
MQTT
Running on VPS
Wifi/DensePose experiment
Next steps and existential programmatic questions and interesting finds and thought ships (trains are too slow for this analogy ha)
Solid enclosures and circuits; next steps
Interface
Data / sensor selection next steps
In Class Notes
Week 4 and 5 - Device 1
V1
Eletronics in my project
Next steps
Week 3
Tech vs Regulation
Virtual Private Server
Rabbit hole of questions semi solved through writing
For an upcoming rabbit hole,
Week 2
Final Dashboard
Scan Networks Sketch Serial Monitor:
Running WiFiTCPClient Logger
Q: is there a reason to be replacing instead of using the value directly?
Q ✅
Answer:
Useful Commands
Making the dashboard interesting
Week 1
Electronic devices in my routines
Network Topologies
Network Infrastructure
Command Line Tools
Command Line Tools
HTTP Protocol

Week 7: Data Analysis

Room Magnetic Pulse

Data Unknowns

There’s several options….

Manual annotation - either via SSH scripts on my phone OR through web interface
Averaging, smoothing, or rolling windows

Rolling Windows

Measuring anomalies or thresholds
Statistical aggregation (mean, median, standard deviation)

No cross-correlation between series

Done

✅ Fixed wiring issue from last week;

Now it’s standalone!

✅ Script to try connecting to Home and Sandbox WiFi Networks;

✅ ONLY if device is at home, check how many devices are active; starting logging which WiFi it’s connected to;

✅ Adding this to dashboard;

🤔 Did not implement, but researched/soldered mic; Thermal camera and different PIRs’ range

Important to do

Add firewall to my VPS

Move Web Server from Nginx to Vercel

Re-decide what to show in graph

Next steps depending on how much energy I can budget for this

Redesign enclosure to have different PIRs to be a center piece
Intersect data in a more interesting way
✨ Artistic output ✨

Light center piece / wall mounted matrix;

little joys (SSH’ing into my server from my phone)

Adding active device count to dataset

Scanning devices within Networks

Nmap: the Network Mapper - Free Security Scanner

Questions

Excluding a scenario where someone is physically near my home network, what are the issues of sharing my WiFi Network name and password - to an LLM or online?
Or even the information of how many and which devices are connected to WiFi?

sysctl net.link.ether.inet.max_age
   // Check ARP cache entry lifetime in seconds. 
   // Mine is 1200 seconds or 20 minutes.
   // Since pinging every 20 minutes is perfect for the usecase, we don't need real time.

Added ESPing library

Project Documentation should include,

Systems Diagram

Short description of what we’ve made

Code Structure

Dashboard

uT MicroTesla;
re-do dashboard to be external facing;
do annotations;
commenting my code to learn it;

💡

Ask Yuliya for any data analysis;

Data Visualization

Canvas 2D API (ctx.beginPath(), ctx.lineTo(), ctx.stroke()) but could use Chart.js
d3.js
p5.js: x.y of the pixel, learning how to that;

Instagram Kai Lab on Instagram: "CMYK Searchspace 2.0 [ Aluminum Limited ] . First batch ready for delivery, second batch fast on its way to completion! Third batch available for pre order on the KAI shop! . CMYK Searchspace 2.0 is a fully analog colour synthesizer. No flicker, no PWM dimming a circuit from your old analog electronics text books. . . Special thanks to @qiqi77art for all your help on assembling these! . #design #art #lightart"

Week 6: March/04 → Post Office Hours Conclusions // Defining architecture and society within it

💡

I’m trying update my map or logic system on meaningful work, personal data, artificial intelligence and economics considering what I’ve learnt in Connected Devices.

Thinking isn’t linear and neither is this succession of ideas. Might even be that the big conclusion is ommitted due to being to fundamental, visceral and obvious and triggering another idea. And another.

The future of computing is personal. What does that mean for hardware and custom controllers?

It’s me being able to centralize everything I’ve ever wanted at ines.systems and eventually ines.tools. Connect my home, my thoughts, give meaning to my data and proper use cases.

Different workspaces, different universes and interfaces for different projects and tasks on any given day. With different looks and tools. Similar ethos to the Nothing Phone.

Building this won’t get you any accolades because someone has already built open source dashboards for home IoT DIY, that even connects to your printer via WLAN.

BUT it does give your life excitement and privacy and control.

If someone has already open sourced it and in a world of Claude+Person joint GitHub commits, how can I personally contribute towards feelings of ownership?

Notion has leveraged ownership through customization for non-technical people very well, creating almost a love / hate relationship.

Perhaps it’s that Notion customization (and that era of personal wiki software) got so painful that people pivotted to stickers and other forms of exchange and computing customization.

There’s an art / ritual exchange project hiding here 💡

Paperclip opensourced today.

Notion x Claude Code with a demo published today for visual vibe coding and versioning.

Market is validating my thoughts faster than I can create - what to do about it; what’s a good honest fun USEFUL goal to have, that will make me happy and give me enough money to buy eletronics from Adafruit directly? lol

What if instead of corporate apps on our computers, we had projects with custom interfaces organized by function?

And that is what I’m spinning up. Right now, the primary interface is that I click app first.

But actually brain works with intention first.

The way I ended up with 849 Safari tabs open on my computer was that I’d have intentions, something to figure out and kick start the process with a search and leave it there to come back later.

Closing that tab means I’ve lost that intention.

Moving that intention onto dedicated software is currently awful.

Old: App/Media type first

VS Code

Google Chrome Tab with pinout

Mixed projects, working on 3 things at the same time

New: Function based

Image of pinout

Window with my code

Terminal to jump through

Human-AI Interaction ⭐️ 😮 Human-Computer Interaction ❌

Perhaps the new human-AI interface is me writing a free form text à la Morning Pages from the Artists Way and have that spin up answers with its own context and workspace.

Why this works

Each idea and thought I have has 4 different branching thoughts
My fingers are slower than my brain, which allows for thinking and developing thought.

I always find answers to my own questions by writing or speaking out loud.

Growing fear
Essay quality for AI native teenagers is declining. We want humans to learn. 40% of genZ struggling with handwritten communication.

Are we going to have masters programs called HAI (Human AI interaction) instead of HCI?

If we live in this speculative future where corporate apps are no longer the primary way to interact with the world.

Is the way to monetize this interest (i.e. a job or entrepreneurship) and not do a PhD - custom controllers? Are these the single purpose devices that I was talking about in my ITP application? They are. A tear sheds as I realize. Unclear if it’s from happiness from confirming my stances or sadness that I spent all this time away following the unknowns purely because they’re unknowns.

Great. I start a section in my notes app called ITP Lessons. The 3rd one. I realize I’ve learnt this before. My computing world is a dependency filled chaos.

On PhDs and what to do with my life

Tom mentioned being too deep in Electrical Engineering, as I stare at an Arduino Nano 33 IoT broken antenna and one from Seeed Studio and wonder what they do differently.

And then that I could do a PhD on these topics.

Subtext being that I should be either prioritizing other parts of the project OR commit to the bit and acknowledge that how I choose to spend my time doesn’t align with any capitalistic goals I may have.

💡

AAAAAA

Yesterday, I spent 4 hours helping a classmate on his project. He apologized profusely for taking my time. Indeed my time was taken, but I really enjoyed it (teaching).

In fact, I find myself not doing my own work to help someone with theirs very often.

Is this human nature, procrastination, fear of hard work or a genuine passion for passing on knowledge and empowering others?

AAAAAAAAAA

💡

AAAAAA

Fabri and I discussed “If anyone can 3D print their clothes, does that mean everyone’s clothes are suddenly more unique or more homogenous?” My answer is that it’s not about the options, but rather how many processes one has to stitch components together.

[ Reference: Kim Kardashian: Hollywood]

so putting these 3 things together…..

Entrepreneurship is what people do when they have a strong vision for how the world should work, new ideas frequently but no time to pursue them. So they delegate. Et voilá, this could be the dictionary definition of a company.

PhD is what people do when they wonder and have questions. And when they enjoy teaching the result of that search.

Googling is what people do when they wonder; and someone has already figured it out.

Book (writing) is what you do when you have a lot to say and want to explore it in detail.

It does take time. Which is why you typically do it to document a PhD.

Full time job is what you do if you want peace of mind and to be eligible to purchase a home in Portugal.

This is novel for me because thus far my personal philosophy on teaching is that you shouldn’t do it if that’s the only career outcome because that’s effectively perpetuating a Ponzi scheme. But what about when it feels like the only choice out of enjoyment? How does one distinguish?

I’d like to be heading towards organized systems for personal data that are private.

BUT much like in Fabri’s 3D clothing example, the thing that makes a tool exciting to use is the fact that I built it. So is customizing a dashboard enough for someone to feel ownership? Or do you need to be knowledgable on the inner workings to be able to cut data together?

I’ve spent years thinking about these systems, never realizing I myself was empowered to build them. And now that knowledge is compounding, and I have interesting ideas every 30 minutes which I feel the need to capture, natural language processing/AI + data structures can genuinely be an answer. Plus devices in the home to store + consume.

Is building that capture system a valid life choice? Is this a hobby or do I attempt to make tools around this into a career? DATA → Embedded Furniture and Wearables → How to build ownership and a collectivistic mindset in Fashion Tech → Personal Networks → Distributed knowledge → Centralized World Map → Data Infrastructures (but for a specific application)

Additionally, how much should I stick to my European Union values? How much AI should I use in my own building workflow?

To discuss with Tom

If future of computing is personal,

Each of us can too make their own controllers and devices.

But it’s expensive.

Either because you don’t know what you’re doing so you buy boards with more capabilities than you need or because you’re buying brand name components from places like Adafruit, with tutorials, good documentation, community oversight, forum monitoring.

Expensive is a barrier.

The open source mindset is to remove barriers for participation (in society) (and play?).

The way to make it cheap is to buy components from China / Ali Express ect.

To make custom controllers at a competitive price, eventually that’s the way. Although there is an american pcb manufacturer, for ex. But innovation + cheaper components is certainly happening there.

Maybe this is the mechanism inflation comes down once and for all. Is this line of thinking rooted in macro-economics?

So how

What’s Tom’s opinion about future of hardware and the kind of making that we’ve seen happening at ITP?

Society should reward with the available mechanisms the people who advanced it.

What do we consider advancement? Are the chinese people who took an italian + american open source innovation and made it cheaper (=accessible) also advancing society? Or is this an unwanted externality from open source?

How do I square these values with EU competitiveness strategy?

If we vote with our dollars, then I should be buying from Adafruit or manufacturer’s site. Speak (and buy) your futures into existence.

#TODO Would be fun to set up an eletronics library on the street / like community fridge or Little Books OOOOOOR community server with a devboard with all kinds of sensors where the data is stored locally but neighbours can SSH into it!

(I like SSH as a concept bc I like the terminal but realistically this is what a web served dashboard is, so actually this doesn’t make sense).

If…………………. hardware is cheapest (and most innovative) coming from China by 2 to 10x multiples;

……………..research in unis is defunded;

………… software is dead as a new career choice;

Then………………… ????????????????????????????

Feels like ITP students have the profile and skill set that global systems are begging for; yet past and current generations feel directionless and poorly compensated.

Lines between roles are getting blurred (referencing Harvard paper on people doing more work with AI, not less), and in a program where they were blurred to begin with, and that brands itself on end of career outcomes, there’s definitely something to be figured out. And the entrepreneurship solution unfortunately definitionally doesn’t work for ITP students unless you go really big.

To quote Jeff Feddersen, we just make art and study ethics. But what’s the feasible solution for 98% of society? and 100% of ITP Students?

Full Stack Builder

Microsoft’s solution: the Full Stack Builder role combining those of product teams (product manager, designer, front end engineer, backend engineer) & Fusion Software Development.

“To make full-stack development a reality inside any given organization, Microsoft has said that there will need to be a degree of initial investment into engineering systems and context. This, then, would be the scaffolding. Redmond suggests that new applications will emerge that are architected to support natural language development, augmentation and modification.”

My criticism to this is that a team brings diverse perspectives; people to question if this is what we should even be building; and less burnout / enjoyment of work through collaboration.

Not to mention the economic impacts of running small businesses person companies. Who’s the customer for all of them? Wouldn’t they be duplicated? And if something is widely available, it loses economic value. If it loses economic value → no profit. No profit → no jobs. No jobs → who’s paying AI tokens? (Current answer: big enterprise contracts; individual consumers at 20$ supply training data).

But in this scenario big enterprises are no longer so big (see layoffs & average hiring age being 45). Therefore, question remains open.

→ People would then rally around industries / specific challenges organized locally, perhaps, even though work can be done globally. But it’s unclear to me whether there are actually enough challenges to go around and that people outside of technology are empowered to pursue them.

I see the (architectural) light 🕯️

My VPS can host my data; JSON or a DB.

Make that data available through an API.

FastAPI ! :D

Opposite to microcontroller/device data (bc hard to upload firmware) - in a VPS, data structure should be handled on DB side.

That’s the architecture that fulfills AI / Agentic spirit. The way the (sad) future of creating our own tools with AI becomes a semi happy reality.

Have a database with an API that has the personal data you need for any given project; fetch it and build front end with Claude Code + Figma MCP or Figma Make project into Claude Code or Claude Code /design skill.

The front end can be hosted through Vercel as a client side only application. Free.

HTTP GET /fetch/table_name/new bla ID

Any physical devices can fetch that when connected to a network with WiFi.

💡

I now see that in trying to “simplify” and have my own computer not be a part of the architecture at all, I did something fun but that’s not scalable giving $$ Digital Ocean limits. Web Servers can be hosted for free. Waste of resources to do it inside a VPS.

Therefore, the premise of the question of how to preview web server code when editing VPS files doesn’t make much sense. WHICH IS WHY WE NEED PROJECT/FUNCTION BASED OS INTERFACES. Because I can’t remember every tool I used for a given task.

Apple is probably already building this. Is there a point in trying?

Architecture for Tab Graveyard project: Electron or SwiftUI app? Connected to a central server?

Yep but also doesn’t matter.

The tab list should be uploaded directly onto VPS and served from there.

Week 6: Questions for Tom’s office hours

MQTT won't work through Cloudflare's proxy. So now my VPS’s IP is exposed. Should I care?

Set up a firewall for any port I’m not using.
Connecting MQTT request via Web Sockets.
Set up MQTT connections as MQTT secure.

Set up an SSH key for MQTT;
make sure that all my clients
Wifi SSL client is old wifi, everything else is the same.
On the client side, you can use everything.

Secure certificate.

DNS is a system of rumours.
Every local domain server has to get new records. It would be a lot of traffic.
DNS records sometimes are available through one and not other.

ESP32-Wifi-Depth project - changing router to wpa2 multimodal. Any security vulnerabilities?

If yes, are there any microcontrollers that could do WPA3 and CSI?

WIFI issues

Desktop Client MQTT Client to see if I can connect to broker

Look at Microcontroller client

(Thesis) Wifi network signal strength is directional. Any ways around this?
Platforms for wireframing hardware? Workflows within a VPS.
Could I SSH into my devices? What OS would they need to run? Base requirements? Linux

Thomas K Connecting to a Terminal Server (SSH) on iPhone or iPad
It would be so fun to try jailbreaking into my old iPhone

2 radios separated by 1.5m. Someone at ITP tried it and didn’t work so well.

Antenna close

I don’t have antenna in my set up.

Design devices in such a way that they get connected/triggered near each other.

Can I design a PCB and choose direction?

WiFi shouldn’t

Tom’s solutions:

Use NFC; NFC NFC

NFC can ask the device which protocol it needs.

Exist Gappleted; AirPlay.

What does

Network Topology (for Dummies?™️)

VPS would be on the same network from the same provider.

MQTT ran on a VPS.

Dis

VPS + Tunnel + Device (Raspberry Pi) ———- (Cloudflare or nGrok).

Write a separate client Node.js script;

Gave a different Cortex;

They go through same MQTT

TODO

My ESP32 needs the WiFi antenna.
Need to source an NFC connection. Does PI have it?
Add firewall to block unused ports.

Office Hours with Fabri - Week 6 - March 4th, 2026

Advice → Save time in measuring and being precise in hyper optimal organizing components inside enclosures; and learn how to make PCBs. A new argument for how I’ve been wasting TIME™️ and ENERGY™️ at ITP. Get tiny terminal blocks if needed.

Wires

Crimping tools remove need for twisting Stringy Wire, but they’re a lot of work.

Solid core wire eventually breaks when bent.

Shop has 22AW gauge.

Soldering

Warm the pad and wire first so that it transfers.

Coat stringy wire with solder using a larger pen.

Flux lowers temp at which solder melts → releases fumes.

ITP solder has flux in it already.

TBD: how/why I burned my personal soddering pen tip.

Week 6 - Device 1 - Environmental Data with MQTT

Angles of this project

A possible pitch could be trying create FindMy for your roomates and communities but without big tech. Build / Breakup with FindMy or other tools meant to help document community.
Having all the tools for surveillance at a hardware level but not using them at the software level. Whoever you live with can totally spy on you. And if families knew how to, they would.
The idea that a space can call you towards it. If something is happening the home, it calls you towards the space. Woven Light keychain?

Room Magnetic Pulse

http://living.ines.systems/

[ Add my experiments around the ESP32 for Body Pose; and with Seeed Studio Display]

MQTT

Instead of sending a message every ~5ms, could use the ArduinoMqttClientTouchReadESP32.ino example to send data based on a certain threshold only. Is there any downside vs sending message based on time?

Running on VPS

Wifi/DensePose experiment

I found a project that uses an ESP32-S3 (or ideally more) and a wifi router to determine body pose, breathing, heartbeat, motion and presence within 5m of the Wifi router.

I was able to set up the Docker Container but the ESP32-S3 couldn’t connect to my home router, due to it being WPA3. I wasn’t able to test with a personal hotspot because I changed hotspot names, but that might have worked.

Question: Does switching my home router to WPA2/WPA3 mixed mode have any unintended consequences?

Links

GitHub RuView/docs/user-guide.md at main · ruvnet/RuView

Embed GitHub

“The ESP32 nodes stream binary CSI frames over UDP to port 5005. See Hardware Setup for flashing instructions.”

Next steps and existential programmatic questions and interesting finds and thought ships (trains are too slow for this analogy ha)

ArduinoMqttClientWithWill introduces MQTT Last Will and Testament (LWT). It lets the broker automatically publish a "device offline" message if sensor drops unexpectedly, useful for a long-running room monitor meant to be stationary and unmonitored.
✅ How to RTC without a physical module extra module with battery? API works! NTP (Network Time Protocol); ESP32 fetches real clock time from the internet right after WiFi connects. Built into the ESP32, no extra library needed.
Currently editing on VS code on a local / Github folder and then copying into VPS. Wonder if there’s a better way? Feels silly and prone to confusion. OOOOR could be automated somehow. By creating a Git system for my personal computer and my VPS? Or making a little alias to automatically copy/replace files once edits have been done.

My computer:

scp script.js ines@living.ines.systems:/tmp/

VPS:

ssh ines@living.ines.systems sudo cp /tmp/script.js /var/www/html/

Find it fascinating that I don’t need to restart any PID on my VPS after changing the files… Is it because it’s JS specifically? or a browser client? Can I set any server up to update automatically after copying a file into it?

I remember learning programing (Ruby on Rails) that server side data would be served once and not be able to be changed through user action. But I suppose this is not true in applications. One could have the PID just running in the background, VPS never shuts, and while the same data wouldn’t change, we could send requests to swap out just portions of it. I suppose that’s what React is. It was exciting because otherwise web pages were done to be updated/served in full. But it’s not that it’s not possible to develop such arquitecture.

This modular thinking would serve AI contexts well in interfaces. RE Anthropic Hackathon

Is there a test mode or do I always just ship to “production”?

Serving to localhost wouldn’t be local to me — not same network. So… I would be deploying to a subdomain or another test website setup done for this purpose. But because I have no users or important DB/Data, then I don’t have to care…

Could I include compiling on the Arduino IDE as part of some end-of-bug-fixing script? Or only for CircuitPython compiling?
Add script to check different WiFi networks for connectivity

In class demo issue: SparkFun’s GPIO12 was wrongfully connected. It's a strapping pin that controls flash voltage. If it's HIGH at boot, flash runs at 1.8V instead of 3.3V. The flash chip needed 3.3V to write properly.

Solid enclosures and circuits; next steps

Protoboard: Breadboard wire is enemy #1 of small devices. Purchased very very tiny terminal blocks.
Add USB port opening.
Test how exposed magnometer needs to be to be functional.

EG. very thin layer of PLA, very little in-fill in that specific section? Do I need to edit this in G-Code or does my slicer have options?

Learn CAD methods for twist locks and clasps. Enclosures need to be open and repairable. Screws are sometimes conceptually... screwed to remove.
GrabCAD for 3D models of the eletronics and then extrude those out of the enclosure instead of modelling from scratch.
Add LIPO breakout board

Can they take any voltage power source?

Interface

Display: What’s useful to know when debugging?
PWM an LED to show you if it’s connected.

Aram has very small LEDs.

Use color associations and pattern recognition wisely.
Work towards reducing number of buttons.

Audio is useful for events (EG. temperature reaching X; print is ready).

Data / sensor selection next steps

I’m still fundamentally missing data outcomes that I find exciting.

Options that require purchasing/sourcing

Get 3 extra PIRs + XIAO ESP32 and place them on individual room doors.
Array of PIRs but not in the individual room doors, instead facing different directions on the table center piece or in key spots of the apartment.
Get a magnometer with more range.
Get a microphone that only communicates to MQTT whether there’s sound and at what intensity. No sound files transmitted for privacy. Sound is a huge hallmark of motion and aliveness.

Can we handle privacy for sound at the hardware level, instead of software? Is that just a very crappy microphone?

Options with my existing hardware

Second biggest hallmark of motion and aliveness is… motion. Get Wifi Depth Pose to work since I have hardware already enough to triangulate multiple people. Need to change my home router to multimodal WPA2/WPA3. Data includes body pose, breathing, heartbeat, motion and presence.

Possible limitations around having the router not in the living room. Solve with 3rd ESP32-S3 (use Rev TFT board).
Q: If done with Meshtastic, could we look at body pose of…. a whole city? 😮 !!!!

Put my 8 VLX distance sensors to work and form a “sensing” cage to map out the space in Three JS.

Without changing anything

Can use the PIR, based on clusters of times when it gets activated to see activity.

In Class Notes

Can we detect physical motion / data activity of their laptops without external data companies?

I do have administrative access to my router. Makes me think how families need to have a bond of trust and boundaries and who’s in control of the network, has access & information and how often trust is not broken, not due to trust itself but through lack of access to knowledge.

Tom has never heard of an IoT network. But that ‘smells’ a lot like my thesis project. Could we define multiple devices connected in isolation as an IoT network? Would such thing be useful? Why not?

Fabri = visualization of signal strenght.

Wifi Mapping is tough to do, because it doesn’t exist within a space, but there’s still bounds.

How do you encourage people to hunt for the data you need?

NFC tag to receive something, like a treasure hunt.

The network gives, the network takes.

Wifi network signal strength is directional.

#TODO Talk more to Fabri about this.

If you have 4, you could team up in teams of 2, you could follow an existing pattern and complete a map that you visually see on the display and maybe even find another.

People finding a way back to each other. Expand the world.

Good mindset = Figure out what piece of data you need and is missing and design a gamified experience that helps you get it.

cat data.json ||

💡

!! Arquitecture wise, this is precisely what I’ve been wanting to set up as my home / remote access devboard + connected to Claude Code to run experiments from out of home on my phone. Answering those “I wonder if” questions for proofs of concept and ideas I have when I’m out in the city. Only question missing would be how to upload firmware to the ESP32 remotely. If not possible because no OS, then a workflow would be to: 1. Collect any data possible from Arduino, all packaged nicely into a JSON file with little to no treatment. 2. In the same way that I have setup certain branches to deploy automatically to Vercel after commits, could I set up something that: a) deploys directly new script / client side files to my Virtual Private Server? but that would require giving an external cloud service SSH / Password access to my VPS….. b) Or setting up MQTT (if message = do X) / API / use existing one that picks up index.html code and such, and rewrites or replaces file + restarts servers. - Can MQTT Broker take in 300 lines of code or is it just values and small json lines? c) Essentially would need to have a different server other than my VPS send it code. And make sure all systems are incredibly siloed and backed up so that hacks / adversarial attacks don’t have real impact. - Scratch the whole idea and just have an SMS service that texts me results of my experiment. Or fulfill AI’s supposed purpose for society and work and think less instead of strategizing ways of doing it from more places 🙃

Next class - due

Actual assignment
Collect data for a week.
Data analysis
Keep working on enclosures with heat inserts

Noah starts with a reference to trace out.

Add diagram here

Week 4 and 5 - Device 1

My initial goal was to detect the (electromagnetic) life of a room by picking up magnetic field disturbances from nearby electronics (phones, laptops, etc.), but through testing I realized the range is very small (2 to 10cm) and there’s too much noise for this to be appropriate. I’m now layering sensors for an ambient environment logger that builds a continuous, multi-dimensional portrait of a room over time. It makes visible what is normally invisible: the electromagnetic texture of a space, the presence or absence of people, the rhythms of activity and rest that define how a room actually lives and the people who occupy it. The output should be an art piece inspired by Daniel Canogar’s Billow III (2020). I’m also hoping to scale from there some ‘living’ furniture pieces that trigger local AI workflows, but this in all likelihood will take form after graduation.

# Check IP Address and update Arduino sketch
ipconfig getifaddr en0

# Change

# Terminal 1: receives ESP32 data
nc -l 8080 | tee -a log.json &
#	 -a (append) to preserve previous data across reconnects.

# Terminal 2: serves the dashboard
python3 -m http.server 3000

{"device":"RoomSensor","ts":1305264,"mag":{"x":16.00,"y":4.00,"z":-9.00,"mag":18.79},"pir":{"raw":0,"motion":false}}

Could use a Web Socket.

V1

Eletronics in my project

Sparkfun ESP32 Thing Plus (USB-C)
Waveshare BMM150 3-Axis Magnetometer Sensor
SparkFun OpenPIR. Will mount this or a distance sensor facing a doorway or desk area in a wirelessly connected separate device.

Next steps

Attach to virtual server and leave it at home
Collect data over time
Give meaning to PIR data
Establish baseline for magnetometer

Week 3

Tech vs Regulation

A lot of my questions have been developing around internet ethics and what are strategy decisions - from regulators or private companies - and technical limitations. I did not realize how much of what’s possible is almost entirely up to regulation, physical control of server location, App Store locations and internal checks and balances.

Reece Rogers TikTok Is Now Collecting Even More Data About Its Users. Here Are the 3 Biggest Changes

Something interesting to understand would be exactly where the tension is between regulation and physical location. Where location is pulled from will depend on the apps architecture and the update upload pipeline created by the App Store.

Having an EU registered device and App Store linked to EU billing, certain features or updates aren’t available for my region;
Privacy policy for TikTok is set as Canadian soil because I signed up on Canadian soil;
Same privacy policy says that I’m subject to the privacy policy of the country I’m using the app from, yet it doesn’t make the US privacy policy available to me as user.
Finally, I’m barred from accessing a number of services and apps (from very trivial ones to others like Venmo) unless I switch my devices’ region

What I’m realizing is that this really has nothing to do with technicals, but everything to do with how carefully privacy laws are written, which likely does not include cross nation litigation to cover the kind of global movement we see today. Borders seem to be very much in effect and any movement of data or people is all a product of cooperation. It would be worth understanding what can be done in this space and more on the politics of software.

Resource → Electronic Privacy Information Center (Washington-based nonprofit)

Virtual Private Server

Created with Ubuntu OS (Q: how does it relate to Linux? How many are shared commands?), and installed ufw firewall - which means I need to remember to enable certain ports if I want to run multiple servers off of it other than on port 8080 and 8081, blocking incoming traffic other than on certain ports, net-tools, ifconfig (state of network interfaces), SSH key authentication only. To know

Port 8081, typically used by the p5.serialserver
Package installations are done like so sudo apt install nodejs
Shutdown via sudo poweroff or logout and leave it running with logout

When I quit the terminal session with ^C, it’s the same as logout is done (Q: is it?). The differences might become more material when there are multiple users or perhaps multiple instances of the terminal accessed from the same local machine.

SSH = Secure Shell = Communication Protocol

Rabbit hole of questions semi solved through writing

I don’t want to have to check the droplet’s IP address every time (or else, how do usually devs do it?) so options are:

SSH config alias - local only, like a keyboard replacement shortcut.
Replacing hostname with an actual machine name as such ssh username@myserver.local or ssh username@myserver.com

Off topic Q: Does this provide any insight on how email is architecture? Is each individual inbox a server…? Or more like 1 shared server with database tables?

(Resolved) What I’m not fully getting is why the hostname setup with DigitalOcean isn’t valid to SSH into the server as well and therefore, extra steps are necessary. Likely it makes sense because the hostname from DigitalOcean is only revealed to our local computer once I’m granted access to the server. Since we haven’t yet registered a domain name and created a ~~CDN (?)~~ DNS record for it.

CDN (Content Delivery Network) = Fast delivery network; copies our data to other/more servers worldwide for faster access - instead of for example, just being on NY 2 Datacenter.

(Resolved) I’m recalling some trouble around this when I was setting up a Raspberry Pi and changed networks from home to Sandbox, but can’t pin point exactly what the conditions were since now it makes perfect sense to me why the droplet has a hostname on virtual machine side, but it won't resolve unless DNS (Domain Name System = Internet's phone book) is set up.

Perhaps it was because ssh username@myserver.local is local to the network itself and not my local machine? Bingo.

But I still can’t set this kind of access up for a virtual machine. Raspberry Pi wasn’t a virtual machine - it was just another machine, first with a wired connection and then on the same network as my ~~local~~ machine.

(Unresolved) I suppose this puts into perspective what we mean when we say local machine. Seems like it’s always relative - but is it about physical location and any machine being used to access another is always called the local one? Or is it about being on different networks?

In my previous example, referring to my MacBook as the local machine makes little sense in the context of a Raspberry Pi wired or with wireless access to internet on the same network. From the network’s perspective, both are local and mDNS is available to create custom hostnames.

But if I’m accessing that same RaspberryPi from my Macbook, then would professionals in the field refer to the Macbook as the local machine as well?

(Resolved) When it’s Macbook versus DigitalOcean droplet / server, then indeed the Macbook would be my local machine because it’s on my local network (local as in, the access point (router) with most proximity to me physically) BUT also in relation to the droplet which is accessible on the internet and on a different network (Q). Therefore no .local addresses through multicast DNS. Because there’s something “better” ….. just regular DNS.

Side unresolved question: This brings up the question of what do we call intersections of networks - perhaps there’s no need and we’re simply making a request to a separate entity and that’s that.

But… in a world where my home internet provider and the NY Datacenter 2 are the same, and presumably have routers/nodes within range of each other, what would be keeping us from being on the same network? Would it just be corporate decision making to have separation of concerns, access limitations and nothing technical?

Conclusion

Not wanting to check (or memorize) the VPS’s IP address every time is precisely the problem that led to the creation of domain names. So the only way for me not to have to copy the IP address everytime is to get a domain name or set up a silly alias.

On domain names for static sites and server side sites

CNET AI.com Launches After $70 Million Sale and a Super Bowl Debut

This is timely as the most expensive domain purchase just took place for ai.com.

(Resolved) So when we’re paying for domain names, is it because domain name companies have scanned the internet to find all interesting unregistered domains, then proceeded to register them with Cann themselves and only giving up their registration details ~~(or whatever iCann holds~~) in exchange for money (also known as making a ~~sale~~)? YES.

(Resolved) It’s not a sale, it’s rental. Domain Name company still has control over domain registration - they just point an IP address that you provide them with to your chosen domain temporarily. & iCann doesn’t hold actually anything 😭

Or is it because domain name companies bundle it up with other services (like CDN and serving your client only files) and with some marketing sparkle, they package it up for the non-technical folks? YES. depends on the company and what’s their positioning in the market.

Hosting SPAs vs databases

Why does anything with a database/server side fetching cost money to host but client-side only / Single Page Applications / static sites files can be served at presumably no cost?

My single page application hosted with Vercel, domain name 10$/year, free otherwise has files around 1.5GB, with a max of 100mb each.

For another site, I have an PostgreSQL database hosted on Heroku, that I pay 12$/month for but that has ~300mb worth in files.

If all computing is physical, then what kind of services explain this kind of difference - beyond how pricing is structured and that the server side files are more… protected?

Some answers might be in setting up encryption, security, backups, logs ect. Apart from perhaps encryption, aren’t all these things already available as packages for free? Is it just that people don’t want to set them up or is there anything else that I’m missing?

Eg. it was easy&free for me to register trial.space as a domain but there’s additional setup

Learning about networks has shaken up has brought up questions on limitations I’ve experienced over the past 2+ years of learning to code - since I built my computing mental map from the industry, policy and library side, I’m trying to connect with the other technical side and realize a lot of decisions have a product foundation. I’m on my way to the slope of enlightenment…

Resources

Networks at ITP Setting Up a Firewall on a Linux Device

Networks at ITP Setting Up a Virtual Host

For an upcoming rabbit hole,

Look at open source vector embeddings or DIY options vs Digital Ocean’s offering.

Week 2

Final Dashboard

I wanted to use the Accelerometer to create a Dinosaur Game style interaction from Google Chrome’s 404 page in my dashboard. From there I ended up, using it to interact with an old sketch.

Next up would be to increase the communication rate and make the “controller” actually wireless and battery powered.

When I overwork my computer, something interesting has been happening: it gets stuck in a keyboard position but it’s a software issue.

Scan Networks Sketch Serial Monitor:

Please upgrade the firmware
MAC: 8C:AA:B5:8A:C9:04
Scanning available networks...
** Scan Networks **
number of available networks:2
0) MyAltice 540c8b	Signal: -83 dBm	Encryption: WPA2
1) crab	Signal: -94 dBm	Encryption: WPA2

Running WiFiTCPClient Logger

The Arduino I was using mysteriously lost its WiFi antenna.

Q: is there a reason to be replacing instead of using the value directly?

Q ✅

Serial Monitor showed:

connecting
192.168.1.96
8080

When I closed Serial Monitor and opened nc -klw 2 8080, the expected messages of {"device": "first", "AccX": 0.22, "AccY": -0.96, "AccZ": 0.28} started rolling in. Upon closing Serial Monitor, there seemed to be a glitch.

Why? ~~I expected to see the same output on both.~~

Answer:

Arduino was stuck in a loop because client.connect() kept failing (no server to connect to). Once netcat was running, the connection succeeded, moving past the return to actually read sensors and send data.

To send output of netcat server on port 8080 to log.json, as well as keep sending it to terminal window and keep it running in the background: nc -l 8080 | tee log.json &

Now logging port 8080 data onto log.json, leave it running in the background and spin a web server on port assigned by terminal (?) - 8000

nc -l 8080 >> log.json & python3 -m http.server

Useful Commands

➜  wifi-dashboard echo "# wifi-dashboard" >> README.md
➜  wifi-dashboard echo "# wifi-dashboard" >> .gitignore
➜  wifi-dashboard echo "arduino_secrets.h" >> .gitignore

nano filename # Edit directly 
killall nc # kill all netcat processes (were all competing for same port)

#TODO Add database of useful commands, shortcuts, aliases? categorized by program.

Making the dashboard interesting

As I know roughly what I want to be seeing, but it would take me more time than I can dedicate, I decided to try and prompt my way into it. To avoid losing anything, I created a GitHub repo.

❓

I did some other fixes in between manually, particularly in regards to timing.

Prompt

I now want to take these barebones HTML Pages and turn them into something visually more interesting. I want to create 3 divs side by side.

1 should show the accelerometer data raw exactly as it comes in.

The second div should be a 3D canvas, either done with the Canvas Browser API or with Three JS. This will require some data processing as I want to use the X, Y; Z coordinates to trace a path. The latest data to come in should have the brightest color and it should diminish in brightness as we see older and older data. Let's have a maximum of 10 data points at any given time being visualized.

The 3rd one for now will be a placeholder.

When possible implement responsive UI.

Result without further changes

Prompt #2

❓

I wanted to use the accelerometer data to interact with something I’ve previously done for one of my websites - https://www.digipeasy.studio. Also have been wanting to explore how much of customization can be done with Claude Code, based on creative direction existing in other projects. It did quite well in one prompt, including copying my existing color codes and imagery.

On desktop, panel 1 will now be above panel 2, to create more room for panel 2.

/Users/ineslucas/code/ineslucas/creative-toolbox/src/pages/SkillsTags.js

For the 3rd panel, you're going to recreate my SkillsTags.js page. Copy the relevant assets from my Creative Toolbox project, including colors and my picture.

I also want you to look at the kind of styling, colors and fonts I'm using in that project and bring those over.

Do not change the tech stack unless you have my explicit permission. I want to keep this as simple as possible.

Prompt #3

Make the 3JS container occupy the full height of the container and have the animation be on or off via a toggle. Default is for animation to be off. Add orbit controls.

In the desktop version, now panel 1 and 2 only occupy 30% of the screen width.

On Panel 3:

Instead of spinning the balls into the ecosystem through the mouse, let's have that happen on load.
Make them bigger and let's have 30% less of them.
Add one in this color #F57935.
Now I want to use the x and y values of the accelerometer to move the #F57935 colored ball. Of course it should represent the movement I'm doing in reality.

Week 1

Goals for class are around wanting to contribute towards the evolution of small form factor personal devices into what I’ve been calling single purpose hardware if we prioritize personalization and user satisfaction instead of ad driven pricing models.

Electronic devices in my routines

Personal

Phone
Laptop
Wireless Headphones
Two-factor authentication prompts
Go Pro & live streaming into app

Home Devices

Latch Building Door Lock (Bluetooth app)
Alexa as a speaker and alarm clock with music :(
Smart bulbs
Air Purifier
3D Printer
Wifi Router
Smart TV
K-beauty LED Tech Device (bluetooth connection to phone app?)
Photo printer (Wifi connection into phone app)
Label Maker (not a connected device)

On the go

MTA Tap to Pay or POS Keypad
Passport Scanner at the airport
Buzzer to signal restaurant meal is ready
Receipt Printers
Motion Sensors

On campus

NYU Card to enter building
System determines # of people on campus setting general AC temp :( + what does that system look like and how does it ‘network’ floor to floor differently than others?
Charger Locker by the ER

Some affecting my environment indirectly

….. 🤔

Connected Devices

Examples include Arduino to a web server or laptops talking to each other's laptops. IoT is the new connected devices.

Operating Systems

Unix & Linux = POSIX operating systems with similar commands and structure. MacOS is now a Unix OS.

Networking Infrastructure

VPN = allows you to be in one real network while you're also in the private one
Virtual Private Server: Instance of an operating system within an operating system = containers. Each instance won't affect other people's instances

❓

How is this different from Docker?

Network Interfaces

Laptop has 3 network layers: WiFi, Bluetooth, Ethernet

Geographies of the internet: OSI Model: Please do not throw sausage pizza away

Physical layer - What physical medium are you transmitting on?
Datalink layer - What's your physical address (MAC address), regardless of which network you're on?
Network layer - What's your network address (IP address)? How do you connect to other networks?
Transport layer - How are you sending data packets? Should the receiver acknowledge them?
Session layer - How do you say hello and goodbye?
Presentation layer - How is the data formatted and/or encrypted? (e.g., HTML)
Application layer - What are you doing with the data transmitted or received?

Key points

With OSI model, web developers know a lot about presentation and application layer.

MAC address is unique to each computer.

IP (or Inet) number changes everytime you connect to a network. As long as you have an address.

Network Topologies

Random Networks Links between nodes are placed randomly. Messages travel hop by hop to reach distant nodes (distributed network).

Centralized Networks All nodes connect to one central node (star shape). Without the central node, the network is gone.

Decentralized Networks Essentially comprised of hubs, each with a central node. Hubs are linked together. Removal of one hub only affects nodes dependent on it.

The Internet Structure

No single central router
Network providers connect to each other through multiple links
Greater link density = more possible paths = more reliable service
Complete networks connect every node to every other node, requiring (n²-n)/2 links

Small World Networks

Strong ties to nearest neighbors, weak ties across larger network
Weak ties are crucial for connecting the larger network
Example: finding jobs through acquaintances rather than close friends

Visual Trace Route:

Stefan Sundin Traceroute mapper

Network Infrastructure

Content Delivery Network = Cloudflare

Autonomous Systems Networks of networks joined using Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). Major ISPs maintain these routers.

IP Addresses

IPv4: 4 bytes long
Public IP addresses are unique on the internet
Private IP address ranges: 10.0.0.0, 172.16.0.0, 192.168.0.0
Routers have both public and private IP addresses, acting as gateways

Address Assignment

MAC addresses: Licensed from IEEE, 6 bytes (first 3 = OUI, last 3 = unique device ID)
IP addresses: Managed by IANA through Regional Internet Registries (RIRs)
ARP (Address Resolution Protocol): Associates MAC address with IP address

Interface types GUI (the p5 editor for example) vs Text Interfaces (Command line tools?).

Command Line Tools

❓

I’m trying to figure out ways to use AI to standardize format of my notes. Original version lives here. Reformatted clean version is below.

‣

Command Line Tools

Network Diagnostics

nslookup tigoe.net              # See IP address for any website
ifconfig en0                    # The developer way to check network config
traceroute tigoe.net            # Shows network touchpoints/nodes
                                # Reveals who has info about our traffic

File Management

clear                           # End terminal instance
ls -l                          # List with details (shows permissions like drwxr-xr-x)
cat filename                    # See file contents (stands for concatenate)
cat *.txt                      # Open all txt files
ls *.txt                       # List all txt files

Serial Port Access

ls /dev/cu.*                   # See available serial ports
ls /dev/                       # Alternative way
cat /dev/cu.usbmodem101        # Stream data from serial port
                               # Port name from Arduino IDE or by running diff
                               # Serial port created after plugging in Arduino

Piping & Background Processes

cat /dev/cu.usbmodem101 >> log.txt     # Redirect output to file
cat /dev/cu.usbmodem101 >> log.txt &   # Run in background with &
cat myfile.txt | grep Velux            # Search for "Velux" in file

Process Management

ps                             # List all running processes
kill process_number            # Kill a specific process

Network Tools

nc tigoe.net 80                # Netcat - works over network (vs cat locally)
                               # Port 80
nc -nklw 2 80                  # l=listen, w=wait timeout
man nc                         # Manual/help

HTTP Server

nc -l 80                       # Listen on port 80
/get                           # Request verb

python3 -m http.server 80      # Serve HTTP on port 80
# Example IP: 10.20.54.224

HTTP Protocol

To connect to a server, we use the HTTP protocol:

Connect on any given port
Use request verbs (GET, POST) to a specific path

Curl Full-featured tool for HTTP requests

https://tigoe.net

Geography of the Internet (Network Types & internet’s structure at a high level) 📝

Class Site & Syllabus

https://tigoe.github.io

Networks & Hubs / Small world: Something Strange Happens When You Trace How Connected We Are

Networks @ ITP (glossary)

The House That Spied On Me

Tools, Platforms & Guides (see cmd line help)

Tools for Connected Devices

Connecting a microcontroller via TCP to netcat

Marc Weiser, The Computer for the 21st Century (Scientific American, 1991)

The Coming Age of Calm Tech

Ubiquitous Computing Demonstration using Tabs, Pads and Boards from 1988

Introduction to BLE by Tom Igoe (Week 7)

MQTT Examples Arduino Clients

Second Brain

Can you improve air quality in your home? Indoor sensors track their daily life. [Week 3 reading]

Hardware-esque UI

STM32 devices to Wifi with MQTT

Jingwen Zhu

Connected Devices

Connected Devices
Week 7: Data Analysis
Data Unknowns
Done
Important to do
Next steps depending on how much energy I can budget for this
Adding active device count to dataset
Scanning devices within Networks
Questions
Added ESPing library
Project Documentation should include,
Data Visualization
Week 6: March/04 → Post Office Hours Conclusions // Defining architecture and society within it
Human-AI Interaction ⭐️ 😮 Human-Computer Interaction ❌
To discuss with Tom
Full Stack Builder
I see the (architectural) light 🕯️
Week 6: Questions for Tom’s office hours
Office Hours with Fabri - Week 6 - March 4th, 2026
Wires
Soldering
Week 6 - Device 1 - Environmental Data with MQTT
Angles of this project
MQTT
Running on VPS
Wifi/DensePose experiment
Next steps and existential programmatic questions and interesting finds and thought ships (trains are too slow for this analogy ha)
Solid enclosures and circuits; next steps
Interface
Data / sensor selection next steps
In Class Notes
Week 4 and 5 - Device 1
V1
Eletronics in my project
Next steps
Week 3
Tech vs Regulation
Virtual Private Server
Rabbit hole of questions semi solved through writing
For an upcoming rabbit hole,
Week 2
Final Dashboard
Scan Networks Sketch Serial Monitor:
Running WiFiTCPClient Logger
Q: is there a reason to be replacing instead of using the value directly?
Q ✅
Answer:
Useful Commands
Making the dashboard interesting
Week 1
Electronic devices in my routines
Network Topologies
Network Infrastructure
Command Line Tools
Command Line Tools
HTTP Protocol

Week 7: Data Analysis

Room Magnetic Pulse

Data Unknowns

There’s several options….

Manual annotation - either via SSH scripts on my phone OR through web interface
Averaging, smoothing, or rolling windows

Rolling Windows

Measuring anomalies or thresholds
Statistical aggregation (mean, median, standard deviation)

No cross-correlation between series

Done

✅ Fixed wiring issue from last week;

Now it’s standalone!

✅ Script to try connecting to Home and Sandbox WiFi Networks;

✅ ONLY if device is at home, check how many devices are active; starting logging which WiFi it’s connected to;

✅ Adding this to dashboard;

🤔 Did not implement, but researched/soldered mic; Thermal camera and different PIRs’ range

Important to do

Add firewall to my VPS

Move Web Server from Nginx to Vercel

Re-decide what to show in graph

Next steps depending on how much energy I can budget for this

Redesign enclosure to have different PIRs to be a center piece
Intersect data in a more interesting way
✨ Artistic output ✨

Light center piece / wall mounted matrix;

little joys (SSH’ing into my server from my phone)

Adding active device count to dataset

Scanning devices within Networks

Nmap: the Network Mapper - Free Security Scanner

Questions

Excluding a scenario where someone is physically near my home network, what are the issues of sharing my WiFi Network name and password - to an LLM or online?
Or even the information of how many and which devices are connected to WiFi?

sysctl net.link.ether.inet.max_age
   // Check ARP cache entry lifetime in seconds. 
   // Mine is 1200 seconds or 20 minutes.
   // Since pinging every 20 minutes is perfect for the usecase, we don't need real time.

Added ESPing library

Project Documentation should include,

Systems Diagram

Short description of what we’ve made

Code Structure

Dashboard

uT MicroTesla;
re-do dashboard to be external facing;
do annotations;
commenting my code to learn it;

💡

Ask Yuliya for any data analysis;

Data Visualization

Canvas 2D API (ctx.beginPath(), ctx.lineTo(), ctx.stroke()) but could use Chart.js
d3.js
p5.js: x.y of the pixel, learning how to that;