Bored with your outfit? Imagine if you could change the color of your shirt, using just your smartphone.
A group of female tinkerers in Bangkok, Thailand, have figured a way to do just that. Using a thumb-sized circuit board called the ESPresso Lite V2.0, the members of PINN Creative Space have built a system that lets people use their smartphones to change the colors of tiny LED lights embedded in a T-shirt.
The not-so-simple T-shirt is part of the Internet of Things (IoT) – the growing network of everyday objects with internet connectivity, which allows them to interact in the way we take for granted in PCs and smartphones.
Cisco, Sony, and more recently, Samsung, are among multinational companies that are investing in IoT.
But the start-up behind the ESPresso Lite wants to coexist with the "big boys." Singapore-based IoT company ESPert, which created the tiny circuit board, wants amateur hobbyists to be able to build their own IoT gadgets at an affordable price. The Thai hobbyists' "I-o-Tee" is one example of what can be made with the technology.
The low-cost ESPresso Lite V2.0, which helps amateur inventors build their own IoT devices.ESPert
The ESPresso Lite contains a chip that enables devices to "speak" to one another via the cloud, using a Wi-Fi connection. Priced at $10, it retails mostly online in 14 countries across Asia, as well as in Australia, Europe and the U.S. In two months, ESPert has sold about 5,000 units.
For CEO William Hooi, who co-founded ESPert in 2015, it is about "democratizing access and production" in the burgeoning IoT space.
"Big companies, unfortunately, don't have the sensing from the ground on what people want to buy," the 42-year-old tells CNBC. "We know because we are small enough, but of course, our size restricts us."
ESPert is one of an increasing number of IoT startups in Asia. The bootstrapped, or founder-funded, company believes that its very existence is a by-product of the growing DIY culture in Southeast Asia.
Hooi and his co-founder, Thai national Panutat Tejasen, 63, are both pioneers of the rising "maker movements" in their home cities, Singapore and Chiang Mai.
