Why bother to look out your window to see what’s the weather like, when you can use Tempescope instead? That’s an excellent question. Because it’s easier? More fun? Cooler? Perhaps all three of those. Anyhow, this new device was spotted at Japan’s CEATEC trade show last week, and although the concept may still be rough, we can’t say it isn’t intriguing.
Created by a Japanese designer, Ken Kawamoto, Tempescope recreates the weather outside right on your, e.g. coffee table. It consists of a water pump, a mist diffuser, a set of colored LED lights, and an Arduino microcontroller, all packed inside a clear acrylic box. Tempescope can connect to the Internet and get hourly weather forecasts by syncing wirelessly with a computer or a mobile phone. After that, a software program uses this data to recreate the weather.
The LED lights will change from red to blue to show the outside temperature, whereas the diffuser will fill the box with mist to match the level of cloud cover outside. If it’s raining, well, you can guess – the pump takes water and drips it from Tempescope’s ceiling. If there’s a storm outside, Tempescope can recreate lightning.
At the moment, Tempescope is just a prototype, but if you don’t feel like waiting for it to come out (probably next year), you can always try making it on your own, because Kawamoto released the design plans online, for free. 
