Hack Your Umbrella Stand So It Tells You The Weather Forecast

I always say you can tell a lot about how organized people are in their lives by whether or not they carry an umbrella on rainy days. It may sound like a no-brainer, but many of us don’t do that. My umbrella is usually lost somewhere in the back of my car or in my garage, and I almost never have it when I need it. I’m a big fan of the “run while covering” maneuver where I run as fast as I can while covering my head with something completely useless that isn’t keeping hardly any rain off me. With this umbrella stand hack, I could become inspired to change my disorganized ways.

How would you like it if you had an umbrella stand near your front door, and whenever you walked passed it, it blinked a certain color which would tell you if you need to grab the umbrella that’s in it? Wouldn’t that be a dream? You can make that a reality with this simple hack. It will make your umbrella stand flash green (which means it’s going to be a sunny day), blue (which means it’s going to rain occasionally) or red (which means there are going to be thunderstorms, and if you don’t grab that umbrella, you’re going to get drenched).

It does all this by tapping into the API at World Weather Online. Since it’s motion-activated, it knows when you are about to leave. That is the moment it gives you this valuable information. It all sounds brilliant to me! This wonderful hack was created by Simone Marra. If you’d like to make this, click over to Umbrella Stand on Open Picus to get the entire tutorial, parts and code. Good luck and happy hacking!