Louis

Took me all day to cook this idea up apparently: What else has an LCD and a keypad that we already interface with Fido? A cell phone! I think that the first run should be programmable via cell phone with an *optional* LCD display so that you can check temp without texting when you're physically near the device. The cell phone that initially texts Fido will become the "owner" and will need to confirm reprograms from different phone with an option of relinquishing ownership. A hard reset will also allow Fido to get a new owner. A shield with keypad and LCD can be a later elaboration on Fido v1. Sound reasonable?

The [RGB LCD Shield Kit](https://www.adafruit.com/products/714) not only reduces pins to the two I2C pins, which is the exact same as the [I2C backpack](https://www.adafruit.com/products/292) we're currently using, but it also has buttons! The [port expander](https://www.adafruit.com/products/732) used on the RGB shield seems like it could handle our keypad just as easily as it could handle those 5 buttons, plus it's not a surface mount device (SMD) so it's big enough for a hobbyist to wire up easily. It would probably end up costing the same if we build on our shield since we could then drop the I2C backpack since our shield will handle that too; downside is that it will be more difficult to make. LEDs would work to let you know that the device is running and in alarm mode or not, but I think that it basically reduces the "reprogrammable on the fly" feature of our product to none since how can you input a temperature or a phone number using just an LED for feedback? It would require teaching users some kind of color code for numbers and that doesn't sound user friendly at all. Plus, how do they know if they're reprogramming the bounds or the phone number or something else? Stripping down the device to no LCD and no keypad is definitely a cheaper alternative though.