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> web interface to make this more intuitive-- farmer could plug in the variables into a form (fill in box for upper limit, lower, limit, check box for updates daily, hourly, etc) which would generate a text message to the Fido coded properly, using some kind of online SMS tool An online Fido configuration service, that's a really great idea. Building the online form to generate the proper string is the easy part (1 hour), integrating with an SMS gateway so the website can send text messages is the tricky part. The easiest route to send a text message using an SMS gateway is to use a "web service" like Twilio that provides one easy to integrate with service point that works no matter what cellphone carrier the number you are sending to may be using. The downside here is that a service like Twilio [costs a penny per text message](http://www.twilio.com/pricing) while you can send text messages for free if you integrate with each carrier individually. I'm not going to worry about costs though because having so many people using a online Fido configuration service to the point it's costing us a noticeable amount of money is a problem we would like to have. I think it makes sense that the online Fido configuration service generates the string and then gives the option to send the string to your Fido as opposed to just sending it right away. This leaves open the option to text the string yourself which can be seen as a learning experience. We can start by building the online Fido configuration service form as soon as we settle on a messaging protocol and then build the "Text this to your Fido!" option later.
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It looks like we've settled on this issue for now. I've found it's best practice to summarize the status of an issue in it's original post when it has reached a good stopping point. @Louis You could write something like... # Conclusion We've decided to drop the dependency on a keypad and lcd screen in favor of interfacing with Fido using a separate cellphone. See [the comment that inspired this](http://farmhack.org/comment/129#comment-129) and check out our new conversation [Program your Fido by sending it text messages ](http://farmhack.org/forums/program-your-fido-sending-it-text-messages).
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Aaaaah buttons nice. > The 4 directional buttons plus select button allows basic control... Keypads take up a lot of pins (which one were you thinking about using?), so with buttons on an RGB LCD Shield Kit and some (a lot?) programming, we might be able to drop the keypad altogether. In the interrupt mode the left and right buttons would move across the LCD and the up and down button would change the value of the number. Anyways, cool ideas but the most important thing right now I think is getting a minimum viable product built whichever way is easiest. We can iterate later to improve things like cost, usability, and ... "buildability". So with that in mind, the reasons I suggest an RGB LED are as follows. 1) The RGB LED helps out with the pin issue. 2) The RGB LED + Keypad combo might be easier to program than the LCD + Keypad combo. > how do they know if they're reprogramming the bounds or the phone number or something else? Inspired by decades of crappy electronics with one singular red light blinking out a primitive version of Morse code, we could deploy a similar technique with an RGB LED. The directions might go like something as follows. ## To set the Phone number 1. Hold # until the LED blinks green. 2. Enter the phone number you would like to be sent text messages. 3. Hold # again and the LED will stop blinking green. Fido will now send you a confirmation text message. ## To set the upper bounds 1. Hold * until the LED blinks red. 2. Enter the temperature you would like to be the upper bounds. 3. Hold * again and the LED will stop blinking. ## To set the lower bounds 1. Hold 0 until the LED blinks blue. 2. Enter the temperature you would like to be the lower bounds. 3. Hold 0 again and the LED will stop blinking. ## To see the current temperature 1. Hold 1 until the LED turns on. If you defined your upper bound as 95 degrees and your lower bounds as 75 degrees, you will see corresponding colors across the RGB spectrum for the following temperatures. Red (95) - Orange (90) - Yellow (85) - Green (80) - Blue (75) If implementing something like what I've just proposed sounds more difficult than what you had in mind, then don't worry about it. I'm not familiar with programming LCDs and using them in combination with keypads to do input so it's tough for me to estimate which way is more difficult. Maybe we'll come back to this idea at some later date if the cost/benefit of this starts to seem appealing.