New Maker Module Hacks Into GE Appliances to Cook Up Innovation

via GE

FirstBuild™, a new global co-creation community, debuted its revolutionary first product, Green Bean (retail $19.95), today at Maker Con in New York City. The first-of-its-kind, open-source maker module enables you to hack into and create your own appliance controls for select GE appliances through a software development kit.

In a game-changing move, GE is lifting the curtain and granting tinkerers and programmers access to the microcomputer inside specific GE appliances so that anyone can build apps to customize and control them.

FirstBuild.com is a physical and online community dedicated to designing, engineering and building the next generation of major appliances. It fosters co-creation among engineers, designers, makers and home enthusiasts around the globe, who can participate in the development of appliance breakthroughs to address current challenges, and ensure that it is bringing products to market that people actually want. Community members identify market needs, participate in product development, and watch via social media as ideas speed from mind to market in only a matter of months at the FirstBuild Microfactory in Louisville, Ky.

During World Maker Faire New York, September 20-21, Green Bean will be available for demonstration and FirstBuild will be challenging programmers and hardware hackers alike to envision new uses and alternate applications for today’s GE appliances.

“Ideas are only the starting point. At FirstBuild, we believe that we can create better products by teaming up with a diverse community, building our ideas, and experiencing the benefits of the things we build. Green Bean is the ultimate embodiment of this vision,” said Taylor Dawson, FirstBuild product enthusiast and GE Appliances engineer. “By giving anyone and everyone a direct path into the brain of our home appliances, we are endowing them with the ability to reprogram and reimagine the way that their appliances could work. Green Bean is limited only by your creativity and programming skills, and for FirstBuild, it’s a way to create appliances collaboratively with the best minds from around the world, and bring them to market in only a matter of months.”

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