Supermechanical Updates - Twine community http://minervakestner.com/ Mon, 27 Apr 2026 18:28:14 +0000 Supermechanical Updates - Twine community en Twine Update 2.0: Battery life and more http://minervakestner.com/discussion/458/twine-update-2-0-battery-life-and-more Tue, 04 Jun 2013 16:34:52 +0000 Supermechanical Updates Christina 458@/discussions Remember when we mentioned we were undertaking a major rework of Twine's radio firmware to improve battery life? It’s here, and it brought some friends! You can read about everything that is included in our blog (might want to have a snack handy, it's long).
You can start this update from your Account page. Under "Your Twines" you'll see a link to "Upgrade to 2.0 firmware" — tap on that and follow the instructions. The website has been updated as well so make sure you clear your browser’s cache too. Read on to understand all the implications.

Battery life
With the radio update, Twine will be able to run 2 months or more on 2 AAA batteries, depending on usage. Of course, if you don’t want to rely on batteries, that's why we gave Twine a micro USB port — you can use it to plug into the wall.
The update comes with a change that makes this extended life possible: your Twine’s dashboard will update every 20 minutes. This will not affect how you receive notifications — when your rules are triggered, Twine will notify you right away, same as before.  If you’d like to keep your Twine updating every minute, you can ignore the update — you just won't get the battery life improvement.
Sharing the dashboard
You can now share your Twine’s dashboard, or just one sensor. Only the people you share the key with will be able to see the data. Don’t want to share anymore? Uncheck the box, and Twine’s data is private again.
Networking improvements and more
What else is included? Support for hidden networks (with the 2.0 radio update). Networking improvements for even better reliability. More accurate timekeeping. Quicker triggering of multiple actions. Celsius reporting in rules. And lots of smaller tweaks to make things better all over the place.
Last but not least, you'll notice that we've exchanged the formerly unwieldy address of Twine's web app for the svelte new https://twine.cc - update your bookmarks and homescreen icons accordingly.

]]> Update 1/18/2013 http://minervakestner.com/discussion/315/update-1-18-2013 Fri, 18 Jan 2013 17:44:07 +0000 Supermechanical Updates Christina 315@/discussions
We’ve got a few updates coming to your Twines, and we wanted to give you all a heads up of what you can expect soon. We’re sorry for the extended silence. We intended for the community forum to be a place for you all to share your ideas and thoughts without interference from us, but we have been listening, and from your comments we’ve realized that we do need to play a bigger role. In the past, communications have been spread among us all, but it will now be my main job. You can expect more regular updates here in the future about what we’re up to and what improvements we’re working on, and I’ll be checking in a few times a day, but the best way to get your questions answered is to email us at help@supermechanical.com. 

 Right now, we’re working hard on several things, but our priorities are the vibration sensor and improved battery life. Vibration is currently in beta testing and will be released in 2 weeks, along with small power consumption improvements. This will be firmware v1.2. Here’s a preview of what it will look like on your dashboard:
 image









 Bigger power consumption gains are in development. In the meantime, you can use lithium batteries to get the most out of battery life (or power your Twine via micro USB). You can also get better battery life if your Twine is closer to your router; it's less work for Twine's radio. 

 We’re still solving a Fahrenheit/Celsius conversion bug. If you aren’t getting notifications from Celsius rules, set your Twine to Fahrenheit while we fix it. 

We’re busy making Twine meet and exceed your expectations. We know you’ve been waiting a long time for these updates, and we appreciate your support as Twine grows. 

 Christina & Supermechanical
]]> Update 1/28/2013 http://minervakestner.com/discussion/331/update-1-28-2013 Mon, 28 Jan 2013 18:22:15 +0000 Supermechanical Updates Christina 331@/discussions
The day we've all been waiting for has finally arrived. We've released firmware update 1.2.
Here's what's included in the release:
1. Vibration sensor functionality.
2. Several small reductions in power consumption.
3. Celsius functioning, for all our international friends.
4. UI improvements, including Wi-Fi signal and battery life bars and an improved fast mode switch.

Save your rules, and you'll get the update!


-Christina
]]> Update: Twine Cloud Shield and Battery Life http://minervakestner.com/discussion/399/update-twine-cloud-shield-and-battery-life Fri, 08 Mar 2013 16:47:03 +0000 Supermechanical Updates Christina 399@/discussions Stack Cloud Shield on your Arduino, connect it to Twine, and get email, texting, calling, and more in a jiffy. With Cloud Shield, you can add the ability to trigger any Twine output from your Arduino sketch with three lines of code, so you can focus on your idea and not debugging networking code. Want to see how easy it is? Check out this video.
What could make this even better? If you get a Twine + Cloud Shield kit now, you’ll get $10 off! Already have a Twine, but want the Cloud Shield? Free shipping for you (domestic only)!
In the video, you get a special sneak preview of a soon-to-be released notification method, phone calls! Your Twine will call you with the text you type in the action. It will be available as a paid add-on.

Battery life update:

First of all, don't worry!  We're not done reducing power consumption and are continuing to invest development resources into improving Twine battery life.  The Twine 1.2 release not only added new features like vibration support, but also reduced the power used by the accelerometer and external port.  Here's the situation at the moment:
1. In fixed installations, you can use virtually any micro-USB power supply to run your Twine.  Here's one on Amazon with free shipping.  Twine will automatically fall back to batteries if external power is lost.
2. This pie chart below shows how much power each Twine component uses.image
As you can see, the WiFi radio accounts for about 76% of Twine's power consumption.  That's a big, but unfortunately very necessary chunk!  To further improve battery life, we have started a major rework of the way that the radio subsystem works.  This effort will take some time to complete, but should make very significant reductions in the amount of power that the radio uses.  We'll keep you updated as we get closer to release.
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