The Smart Home on Wheels project is going strong. We have received good responses from most of the people we have contacted, while a few have outright said they can’t provide and a bunch have never responded at all. We are looking for ways to subsidize the cost, so we are open to the idea of a Kickstarter possibility.
The concept is to bring a motorhome up to and beyond the standards found in traditional homes. I am doing all the installation myself, so we don’t have to pay for labor at all. Some of the equipment has been received free for inclusion and review. There is a lot left though. We still need batteries and solar panels, mini computers, and some smart devices. Some of it I have priced out, some of it I’m still trying to figure out what to do about them. I am delicately balancing the forces of cost vs ease of setup, but trying to lean more to ease of setup for you, our readers.
All of the costs, therefor, would go to hardware needed to complete this project. But who wants to raise money for someone else to tech out their RV? So that’s where rewards come in. I’m curious to know what kind of reward you would be interested in as reader, please comment below or send me an email.
Rewards?
There are some things we are considering. First, the ebook. When the project is completed, we are going to go through everything, every success and every failure, and put the best, easiest ideas into a walkthrough ebook with all the steps to build your own Smart Home on Wheels. That will take some time, assuming the project can be completed in six months, we’ll need another three to six to edit, rewrite, and layout the book.
Second, Bubba On The Road merchandise. We have a logo being made now that will be on the webpage as soon as its finished. With a high quality file, we could also put it on t-shirts, bumper stickers, there are tons of options. Maybe we can make a hat with just an embroidered image of Odin. Who doesn’t love our kitten Odin enough to wear him proudly?
Third, and the highest level for our Kickstarter: a professional install by me. This will take some time as I have to dig in and refine my process, but for enough money, I’d go to someone in the continental US and install a Smart Home on Wheels setup for them. I’d have to work closely with that person to find out their needs and demands, and then have them order all the product they’d need, and finally go to them and do the install.
Pay for it yourself, buddy!
For those who don’t know, I am on disability. Its so severe, I cannot work at all, though I have worked for decades in the past. Our budget is small, our costs are small, and we survive. I would love to have the kind of income to pay for all this, put out the ebook, and help others install their own system. As it stands though, I cannot do it on my own. I’m not looking for tens of thousands of dollars or anything that isn’t needed for the final build and walkthrough. I would love to have a $5,000 iMac Pro to control it all, but there is no way I need it. Instead we are going with cheap, reliable, small Raspberry Pi’s that cost about $65 when all assembled with everything. We are not going with high end all-in-one systems, we are going with free, open source software that anyone can download and set up on their own. The system we build for our project RV will be overkill, but nothing will be unnecessary. I am researching everywhere to find the best products for both our system, and for ease of use and setup so our readers and follow along.
The End Result
The final product will be an ebook and also a PDF so anyone can read it. The webpage will retain all the old posts, but be cleaned up to make it easier without making the ebook redundant. I will also make a page with links to all the products needed for each person’s build, so they can go to Amazon and order everything they need at once, then read through the book, follow the steps, and have as much of a Smart Home on Wheels as they want.
Any takers? Would you back a Kickstarter in return for an awesome T-shirt and an ebook? I know some of our readers don’t have RVs yet, but many do. If you want to add technology to your RV, this is the chance to do it by watching us make mistakes and fix them before you have to. Are there any other items you’d rather receive in return for backing our Kickstarter?
