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Mobile Phone Technology and Developing Nations
angry tapir writes "Mobile Operator Tata Teleservices is testing technology that allows farmers to use their mobile phones to remotely monitor and switch on irrigation pump sets in far-flung locations. The technology, called Nano Ganesh, is being tested in two villages in the Indian state of Gujarat. In India, where the electricity supply is erratic, farmers often walk several kilometers to where their irrigation pumps are located, only to find that there is no electricity available. By dialing a code number from a mobile phone to a wireless device attached to the pump, farmers can now remotely monitor the electricity supply, and also switch the pump on and off. It's just the latest example of how mobile phone technology is being employed in novel ways to solve problems in developing nations. For example in Kenya, GSM technology has been used to help tame marauding elephants."
My company currently produces what we call "potato stations" though they can be used in farming of other stuff.
They monitor humidity of soil and some other factors like temperature, and send SMS when these exceed preset thresholds and require attention.
The SMS can be either received on personal phone so the farmer just goes to start the sprinklers or whatever, or can be read by automated system that does it without human attention.
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i can receive images, switch lights on and off, open and close blinds and switch water heater on/off in my village home in a less developed part of the world via gsm ... from basically anywhere.
all you need is a basic stamp module (or similar card), a second-hand phone, a serial cable, some simple electronic parts and a little patience.
and I am sure someone here can do it with less and make it better than I have.
It isn't as bad as you think with this kind of devices. Due to lacking size restrictions like normal cellphones, they can afford decently-sized antennas in place of the puny things put in the phones, and since you don't keep them to your head, they can emit stronger signal too.. That means the coverage is vastly better than in case of normal phones.
The downside is the battery life - the battery should optimally last at least one farming season. Thus it is much better if the devices don't listen in to outside communications, but simply report their status periodically, waking up for a minute once a hour or so, collect overdue SMS config/request messages, collect data, then send out what is to be sent (if any). No interactive communication.
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I was in Cambodia last week, when I saw a weather alert sent to locals via a free SMS. It was warning people that a storm was spotted with dangerous lightning, so people should go indoors.
In a place without the weather channel, I thought this was a rather inspired way to easily inform people of approaching danger.