On: Ask HN: What API to the physical world do you wish...

[neilk]

I'd like each parking meter to have an API. When you park, you tell your phone what the API endpoint of the meter is, via QR code or whatever. Then you can continue to monitor it, and pay the meter, remotely. Or if there are ordinances forbidding parking more than N hours it alerts you.

Probably wouldn't happen as cities are addicted to parking ticket revenue, and there are unionized meter readers.

[andrewtbham → neilk]

Parking meters are often designed to Make long term parking inconvenient and make short term parking available.

[drewda → neilk]

See Streetline, a spin-off from PARC, that's been installing metering systems around San Francisco and Los Angeles, among other locations: http://www.streetlinenetworks.com/