As product designers we live in exciting times. The next era of the continuing digital revolution, called the Internet of Things, has become a reality. But what does this “Internet of Things” really mean, and how can designers make sense of it all?
Read my full article about the Smart Fridge here:
http://www.xgmedia.com/2013/06/the-internet-of-things-to-come-demystifying-the-myth-of-the-smart-fridge
21. SMART CITY
Smart cities can light their streets more efficiently, receive instant
reports on hazards, and even help residents find a nearby parking
spot.
25. INDUSTRY & BUSINESS
Industries can optimize their operations and boost productivity by
better tracking inventories and other assets while maintaining
quality control and consistency in their products and services.
26. Fliike – Grow your social community from your store.
31. THE ENVIRONMENT
The environment can be monitored for a better understanding and
management of natural resources or send us advance warnings of
a pending disaster.
54. IMEI and MAC addresses for both 802.11 WiFi networks
55. RFID Tags RFID Reader RFID Information
Processing
Systems
56.
57. RFID Tags RFID Reader RFID Information
Processing
Systems
Sensors:
photo-eyes, motion detectors,
environmental monitors
Automation:
triggers, servos,
motors, robotics
85. Inventory Shrinkage (Shrink) Reduction RFID Retail
• Track retail items between point of manufacture or purchase from supplier and point of sale.
• Real-time notification of security when RFID tagged items leave area without payment
• Competitive advantage – saving money on theft allows to offer product at lower prices
RFID Smart Labeling
• Monitor unattended inventory RFID Retail
• Automatic item identification on mixed pallets
• "Smart Shelf" systems – designed to provide real time tracking and lovating of tagged items on shelves
• Shipping and Receiving applications
• Shelf Stocking
RFID Retail
• Real-time notification of out-of –stock items
• Improvement of product replenishment
• Retention of consumers who may turn to competitors if inventory item is out-of-stock
• Automated charting and tracking for improved product forecasting
Check-out Process
• Reduce time spent in line
• Reduce labor/time cost of employees
• Streamline check-out process with ability to scan multiple items and pay for them all at once
Overhead Reduction
• Track product shipping and receiving from point-to-point automatically versus manual tracking to save
time and labor cost
• Know how many units of inventory or on-site via automated RFID system versus manual process, saving
labor and time cost
• Efficiency in error reduction reduces manual labor cost
98. We're moving to a world in which every
device generates useful data, in which
every action creates „information
shadows‟ on the net.
--TIM O’REILLY | FOUNDER AND CEO, O’REILLY MEDIA
This slim, stylish device is with you all the time. During the day, it tracks steps, distance, and calories burned. At night, it tracks your sleep cycle and wakes you silently in the morning. Just check out the lights to see how you stack up against your personal goal. It’s the motivation you need to get out and be more active.http://www.iotnewsnetwork.com/body-health/make-fitness-a-lifestyle-with-flex/
Every day, millions of people with asthma use rescue inhalers, inadvertently indicating how well their disease is managed. Knowing when and where these symptoms occur can reveal valuable clues about environmental exposures that trigger asthma. But until now, there has been no way to accurately collect this information.We created a sensor that tracks the use of inhalers, automatically capturing the time and geographic location of symptoms. We’ve also developed web and mobile phone applications so that patients and physicians can monitor asthma in daily life, take steps to control the disease, and prevent costly exacerbations.http://www.iotnewsnetwork.com/body-health/asthmapolis-better-manage-your-asthma/
http://www.adheretech.com/
Dropcam is a high-definition Wi-Fi video camera with remote viewing and two-way sound for your home or business. Dropcam automatically encrypts your live footage and streams it securely. Instead of saving cumbersome files to your desktop, the optional DVR service stores your footage in the cloud.http://www.iotnewsnetwork.com/connected-home/dropcam-wi-fi-home-monitoring-camera/
Once installed on your existing deadbolt, August simply uses a Bluetooth LE connection with your smartphone to lock and unlock the door. Whether a guest comes to stay, the dog walker is scheduled, or a delivery is expected, the August app can be used to send a virtual key that will open the door at your specified time, tailoring access according to the person.http://www.iotnewsnetwork.com/connected-home/august-a-safe-simple-and-social-smart-lock-set-to-revolutionize-home-access/
CubeSensors are small, cordless and connected devices that continuously measure temperature, humidity, noise, light, air quality and barometric pressure for every room, they can even pick up unwanted vibrations that shake up your building.http://www.iotnewsnetwork.com/connected-home/cubesensors-improving-indoor-living/Air quality sensor (asthmatic quality of air)
Whether you’re on the go, working late at the office or out of town on vacation, just open up the Pintofeed app and feed your pet with a tap of a button. Pintofeed will also learn about your pet’s typical feeding times and automatically create a schedule to dispense food.http://www.iotnewsnetwork.com/lifestyle/pintofeed-remotely-feed-your-pet-using-your-phone/
BigBelly Solar was founded in 2003 with the goal of transforming one of the least efficient and resource-intensive industries on the planet — waste collection.http://www.iotnewsnetwork.com/smart-city/bigbelly-solar-the-smart-grid-for-waste-recycling/
Streetline, Inc. is the leading provider of smart parking solutions to cities, garages, airports, universities and other private parking providers. Streetline aims to make smart cities a reality through the use of sensor-enabled mobile and web applications.http://www.iotnewsnetwork.com/smart-city/streetline-the-future-of-parking-is-here/
http://breakfastny.com/points/
International courier giant FedEx has released a new tracking device and web service for packages. Called SenseAware, it keeps tabs on the temperature (Verify the temperature of sensitive shipments, and receive timely notifications if the temperature leaves a specified range.), location and other vital signs of a package - including when it's opened and whether it was tampered with along the way.http://www.senseaware.com/
An Estimote Beacon is a small, wireless device, sometimes also called a ‘mote’. When placed in a physical space, it broadcasts tiny radio signals around itself.Think about it as a very small lighthouse. Smartphones that are in range are able to ‘hear’ these signals and estimate their location very precisely, as well as communicate with the beacon to exchange data and information.http://www.iotnewsnetwork.com/industry/estimote-beacons/
A vast portion of the offline world is not digitally connected to the online world limiting the true potential of Big Data and Business Intelligence. Knightscope’s autonomous mobile devices will be available in a variety of form factors to fill the needs of multiple markets. Each machine will gather data from the offline world and, when combined with existing large data sets, will provide organizations historical and real time information enabling better decisions.http://www.iotnewsnetwork.com/industry/knightscope-autonomous-data-machines/
The Air Quality Egg is a sensor system designed to allow anyone to collect very high resolution readings of NO2 and CO concentrations outside of their home. These two gases are the most indicative elements related to urban air pollution that are sense-able by inexpensive, DIY sensors.http://www.iotnewsnetwork.com/environment/air-quality-egg-community-led-sensing-network/
UC Berkeley researchers have developed a method to learn about the quality, volume, speed, and direction of the flow of salt water and freshwater through the Sacramento Deltahttp://www.iotnewsnetwork.com/environment/floating-sensor-network/
Slope failures, worldwide, cause catastrophic consequences, resulting in many thousands of deaths each year; damage to civil infrastructure costing billions of pounds; displacement of people from their homes, and the breakdown of basic services such as water supply and transport.http://www.bgs.ac.uk/research/tomography/alarms.html
IoT News Network
More things are connecting to the Internet than people — over 12.5 billion devices in 2010 alone. Cisco’s Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG) predicts some 25 billion devices will be connected by 2015, and 50 billion by 2020.
Batteryless remote control for TV, prototype developed for Philips. This remote was presented at Philips Suite at the CES Las Vegas in Jan'11.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9x4FQbS2R4
Weaving the fibres into fabrics fulfils a need for a deformable, storable and transportable power supply; applications include agricultural shading for greenhouses, car park coverage, sun blinds, aero space fabrics, and outdoor goods etc.
On June 26, 1974, the first UPC bar code was scanned on a package of Wrigley’s chewing gum at a Marsh supermarket in Ohio.
RFIDwikipedia.org defines the abbreviation as "Refers to any electronic device that uses radio waves to facilitate the communication of data for the purpose of identification, and sometimes to locate and/or sense the condition(s), of animate and inanimate objects."
RFID tags are affixed to assets. Each has a unique numerical identifier so differentiation is possible. It is common for the RFID tag IDentifier to contain the Serialized Global Trading Identification Number (SGTIN) of the item to which it is affixed. This allows differentiation of identical items. - See more at: http://rfid.net/basics#sthash.JXwRWkn9.dpuf
The appeal of the RFID technology is that it will be of massive benefit to retailers as a way to identify and track a product through its lifecycle… from the producer, through the storage, to the shop floor; It will be used to prevent theft and to maintain a real time inventory of all products in the store, sending alerts when it’s time to replace missing or expired products. Further, this technology will enable consumers to shop without standing in a checkout line. Simply by placing items into an RFID-enabled cart, the consumer will know the total cost of his groceries and will be able to pay with a swipe of a phone and a smile.
RFID tags are affixed to assets. Each has a unique numerical identifier so differentiation is possible. It is common for the RFID tag IDentifier to contain the Serialized Global Trading Identification Number (SGTIN) of the item to which it is affixed. This allows differentiation of identical items. - See more at: http://rfid.net/basics#sthash.JXwRWkn9.dpuf
Today Impinj formally unveiled its Monza® X-2K Dura and Monza X-8K Dura RFID tag chips that unlock new benefits in embedded RFID applications for consumer electronics manufacturers. By embedding RFID into tablets and other devices, manufacturers can enjoy improvements in supply chain security and efficiency, while greatly enhancing the retail customer experience.
The future refrigerator will be semi-transparent, the opaque smart display will tell exactly what’s inside, so we never have to open the door if we don’t need to. Neatly organized food items will be recognized and categorized via sensors. We will be able to do things like place items on hold (e.g., reserving the carrots for Sunday dinner). As you see in the image below (from the productivity future vision video by Microsoft), leftovers will have clear expiration dates, the fridge will calculate the freshness of food and automatically create a shopping list when we’re missing or are low on essential items like milk. The Smart Fridge will even be able to order these items automatically. It will suggest recipes based on ingredients in the fridge, and will even help us maintain our diets.
A perhaps more realistic version of the future says that the Smart Fridge will manage and keep track of our food by scanning the barcodes of items (or of a shopping receipt) as we place items into the fridge. Alternatively, voice-recognition technology will enable the tracking of items by hearing us describe them. All we have to say is “three tomatoes,” “a dozen eggs,” or “cooked tomato pasta” when placing items into the fridge, which will then record the current date and add an expiration date, so we never eat stale food again (not that we would anyway!).
So the question is, will consumers be willing to use a fridge that requires them to manually scan food or place items neatly in specific spots or in special canisters so that sensors can analyze and keep track of food? Probably not.Convenience is a strong differentiator, and consumers will tend to adopt technology that is most convenient to their way of life. If Smart Fridge users have to scan items manually, or interact with a screen while placing food items into the fridge, the Smart Fridge will become a novelty and the added “smart” functionality will scarcely be used. That would be a shame.
Our fridge does not look like this.
An RFID tag is a technology that will be embedded into retail products. For example, it could be embedded in the inside of a pair of shoes or placed as a sticker on product packaging. Its purpose would be to track and identify products using radio waves. This technology will eventually replace the need for a barcode. Each RFID tag represents a unique number for each item individually, so absolute differentiation between products is possible. This number can be read by an RFID reader, which will then process the data through network connections and identify the product name, manufacturer, expiry date, etc. It’s important to note that the RFID tags I’m talking about here are passive. They would not transmit any data unless scanned by a RFID reader, which would then activate and read the RFID tags.
This is where RFID technology and the Internet of Things starts to kick in. RFID technology will eventually replace the barcode, therefore any product that has a barcode today will have an RFID tag in the future. This includes most of the food products we place in our fridge. Every product will have a unique identifier that will represent the product name and the expiry date. The smart fridge will have an RFID reader embedded in every shelf. This reader will scan for RFID tags every time the refrigerator door is opened and closed.
http://www.channelweb.co.uk/crn-uk/news/2102520/synergix-signs-nordic-idThe roadmap to a future where RFID tags replace barcodes on our food packaging is still a long way off. As of now, for one thing, the cost of RFID tagging needs to be lower than one cent per tag. Current cost averages around ten cents per tag. However, RFID technology is already in use in the retail fashion industry, as you can see in this video. The fashion industry is embracing RFID because it simply a better way to keep track of and manage inventory, specifically on higher value products like shoes or suits.
Stanley InnerSpace SpaceTRAX® plus RFID Smart Cabinets or RFID Cabinets are used to keep track of high value products in a wide range of markets, including healthcare, medical device, biotechnology, and security. Smart Cabinet users first identify themselves with a personal key card card to open the door. Then they remove any item from the shelf. Of course, all items in the Smart Cabinet have RFID tags attached to them. Information is captured in real-time so managers always know what they have in stock.
What about fruits and vegetables or cooked food, you may ask? How can the Smart Fridge track these? And my answer is, it won’t. We don’t really need to track everything in our fridge. I also don’t think that we should rely so heavily on technology in every facet of our lives. The average person remembers when he cooked and placed leftover pasta in his fridge. If he needs to, he can always manually add this data or create a reminder about the expiry date for himself. Using the Smart Fridge should be effortless, and smart functionality should not try to change behaviors or take over our lives.
Similar to Nest, The Learning Thermostat, a thermostat that learns household users and their use patterns, the Smart Fridge of the future will also learn. This is what will make it smart.
It will learn and record our average food consumption. So, for example, if we replace a milk carton every three days, the Smart Fridge will understand how much milk is left inside the carton, on average, and can send us alerts when we are low. Over time, we will be able to see the patterns of our food consumption, we can determine if we are eating healthy, or we can monitor food waste due to expired products. We will also be able to see how much we spend on our food and thus better manage our household budget.
What else would the Smart Fridge do? In order to make it appealing to the broadest number of consumers, a Smart Fridge should be able to do everything else that smart devices are able to do today, including a media center, a photo viewer, or even a weather app. But one thing should remain uppermost…it’s a fridge. The average lifetime of a fridge is approximately 15-20 years. The average lifetime of a smart device like a phone or a tablet is approximately three years. Any proposed functionality should take durability of the components into account and allow future software updates and an easy way to replace or update the hardware in case of a failure. Over time, the Smart Fridge will be ubiquitous. As the technology evolves, features that were once unique and useful in the early years of the device could become obsolete and/or useless.
We must take into account the Kano model, which states that over time, original innovations become so widely accepted and appreciated that they become just another basic need of the consumer. Users will not surf the web or order items online while they are standing in front of a fridge. They have other devices and screens for that. Therefore, core functionality should remain the main focus of design. In this case, the case of the Smart Fridge, the core functionality is maintaining an inventory of the food contents and their expiry dates. It will likely remain the Smart Fridge’s key feature for the duration of the product.
What is the difference between IoE and the Internet of Things (IoT)?According to Cisco, IoE brings together people (humans), process (manages the way people, data, and things work together), data (rich information), and things (inanimate objects and devices) to make networked connections more relevant and valuable than ever before—turning information into actions that create new capabilities, richer experiences, and unprecedented economic opportunity for businesses, individuals, and countries.