Connected lamp lets you monitor your wood stove from anywhere in the house

Winter is coming in much of the world, and millions of households are getting ready to fire up their wood stoves to keep warm. Every year, unattended stoves and fireplaces contribute to house fires, so keeping an eye on them is extremely important. A new Kickstarter project called Oru is designed to monitor the fire and offer some peace of mind to those who are constantly worried.

There are already technologies that let you monitor your wood stove from another room, but most rely solely on smartphone apps. That essentially means you have to actively keep an eye on your phone instead of the stove. Oru (not to be confused with the origami kayak of the same name) takes a different approach.

There are just two main components to the device: a lamp and a sensor.

The lamp has a minimalist design with a wooden base. A magnetic sensor attaches to the stovepipe and monitors its temperature. The lamp communicates different temperature ranges through colored light: amber means the stove is burning well, yellow means it’s time to reload, and red indicates that it’s getting too hot and you should check on it immediately. The lamp doesn’t make any sounds and communicates entirely through changes in color.

A glowing lamp placed on your desk or coffee table is much harder to overlook than a phone notification. And that’s the main idea behind Oru: making important information visible without requiring you to check your phone or walk back to the fireplace every 15 minutes. I just wish someone would come up with something similar for cooking stoves and irons.

If you’re a numbers person, you can see the actual temperature through a companion app – yes, there is also an app – available for both iOS and Android. Phone notifications can be enabled through the app as well, even when your phone is in Do Not Disturb mode.

Oru

Both the sensor and the lamp are USB-C-powered and don’t have built-in batteries, so they need to stay connected to a power source at all times. The sensor box needs to be positioned 3 to 4 feet away from the stove (about 1 meter), and both components require Wi-Fi connectivity. The lamp itself can be placed anywhere in the house, as long as it’s within Wi-Fi range.

Since every stove is different, the app allows you to adjust the temperature thresholds to set your own burning zones. You can also select your stovepipe type, including older stove configurations and double-wall stovepipes. The app then walks you through a short calibration process to make sure everything is set up correctly. If you’re installing the sensor on a fireplace, the magnetic sensor goes directly to the fireplace body instead of the pipe.

Oru

In the summertime, or whenever you don’t need to monitor your stove, Oru can be used in lamp mode. You can pick the color, adjust the brightness, and turn it on or off directly through the app, as there are no physical buttons on the lamp itself.

The early-bird pledge price on Kickstarter is US$225, while the expected retail price is $299. Assuming everything goes according to plan, shipping is expected to begin in November.

Sources: Kickstarter, Oru