Yesterday, I was reading an article in the magazine of the Dutch Financial Times (FD Persoonlijk). It was called “Swipen on your Jacket” and I was honestly surprised when I started reading it. Could you imagine that your shirt is taking notes of the position of your body, so that it can advise you to take a better position? To overcome pain or injuries? I never thought about it! Or that you can see your missed calls on your sleeve?
Reading it, I came to the idea to write a blog post about the most unexpected and interesting application of IoT, censoring and smart possibilities. Some are definitely more useful than others, but still.
Smart Fashion: as I mentioned in the introduction, technology allows to implement clothing fibers in clothing which can measure your position. The fibers are washable and so thin that they can bow as easy as normal fibers like cotton. But not only your position can be measured, it is even possible to recognize your feelings (e.g. stressed) and measure the tension in your attitude. Finally, it even will be possible to see your missed calls on your sleeve, with the use of a rudimentary display.
Otohiko Fork: you know that annoying slurping sound when people are eating? This fork detects it and will send a notification to your smartphone. Sequentially, your smartphone starts playing music, to hide the slurping sound of you eating your noodles.
Toasteroid: This sensor makes sure you never let something burn if you put it in a toaster. It sends a notification as soon as it is ready, and therefore overcomes some small inconvenience of burned toast.
These applications don’t seem to be all even useful or life changing, but there is an important message that I would like to emphasize with using these (sometime) silly examples. IoT and smart applications are a life changer and are certainly capable of making our life more efficient, safe and clean. Being able to gather data about so many daily aspects like garbage dustbins, car pollution, freight containers (and their load) and more can improve real time knowledge about things we normally can only do a daily, weekly or monthly check. Therefore, it enables us to get the full 100% out of a situation that would only be occupied by a 60% if we wouldn’t have that real time information.
I’m curious to hear what you think IoT and smart applications can bring to us! Please leave a comment and tell me about it.
Kivits, N. FD Persoonlijk, 02/10/2020. Swipen op je Jas.
