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We believe that looking at or processing data feeds one at a time doesn’t help you solve real life problems. Most often you need to combine data from several different sources in order to understand what is really going on, take smart decisions, make really useful, useable and non annoying applications.

Let’s say you have a proverbial temperature sensor in each of the rooms of your house. If you can only treat the data of each device separately:

• You will have one chart per room to look at which is tedious to follow on a everyday basis.
• You will not be able to decide whether you can lower or heighten your boiler’s intensity because you will not have the big picture of what’s the temperature in your house as a whole (unless you calculate it by hand)
• You can’t see correlations between inside and outside factors
• If you want to share your data, you will be sending one notification (for instance a tweet) per feed, which is the surest way to annoy everybody receiving these notifications and turning the information into noise
• You will not turn this info into knowledge, such as, for instance, what’s the equivalent carbon emission cost of your level of temperature.

At Sen.se we consider that being able to combine and process data from different sources at once is a key feature. This is why we have developed several tools to do this:

Funnel

Lets you get data from several data sources, process them in real time and output just one value. For instance, you can have several temperature sensors in your house. Funnel will get the data from all of them every time a value is updated, then calculate the average temperature in your house. It can also perform other types of predefined calculations.

Calculator

Select all sorts of numerical data sources, then write your own calculation formula combining the values of all these data sources or fixed values. The simplest use is for instance to convert your energy consumption into Euros or Dollars, but you can also create your own ratios and custom measures.

Text Mashupper

Select several data sources. Write a text message inserting variables that stand for the data from these sources. Text Mashupper will create a single message using all these values. You can for instance create a single daily report sent by email that summarizes what is going on in your house by showing the values of all your sensors in one message. You can also send a single tweet per day combining your weight (as measured by your bathroom scale), as well as the number of steps and calories burned as measured by your fitbit.

Multiviz

Graph up to three sources of numerical and even text data on the same chart. Multiviz helps you detect the correlation of events and values, highlight how events have effect on one another. Examples are limitless: combine your power consumption and the average temperature in every room of your house; combine the variations of your weight with the number of steps you make daily; look for correlations between the number of people you meet and the number of coffees you drink and your mood level.

As we already said, the purpose of Open.Sen.se is not just to provide a way to store your data somewhere, but to help you make actual use of it. To make use of it, data must be presented in an easily graspable way, not become annoying in the long term, help you learn something, let you make decisions and take actions whether by yourself or by automatically acting on other devices. The purpose, in short, is to solve actual real life problems and not just make technical proofs of concept. If data is not turned into knowledge and action, it is just a waste of energy.