Set and forget sensing with applets on IFTTT

Abstract

Rich data sets can be collected trivially by bootstrapping off mobile phones and cloud services. We describe an end-to-end system built with IFTTT that requires no code to collect arrival and departure times from a geographic area on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. This system was configured and deployed in less than one half hour, cost nothing to deploy or run, and functioned without interruption for seven months, taking 463 measurements of a single participant. Along with providing the data set, which provides some insight into the working life of a graduate student, we describe each part of the system architecture and discuss how a model of sensing-as-an-applet enables data streams with de-facto standardized, high reliability, and close-to-no-barrier of entry.