It’s going to be a busy new year for the Internet of Things.
Gartner’s latest projections say 6.4 billion things will be connected to the Internet by the end of 2016, with 5.5 million new things connected each day. This blog series highlights the actual “things” in the Internet of Things (IoT) that make the promise of this technology more concrete for everyday people and show its potential uses, great and small. Given the Thanksgiving holiday, we figured the world of kitchen gadgetry was a good place to take a closer look.
What to eat? Ask your food scale.
The Prep Pad by The Orange Chef is a smart food scale that does some nifty things like track what users are eating (including calories, carbs, protein, etc.) to give them real-time insight into what they should be consuming in order to have a balanced diet or meet nutritional goals. But where the Prep Pad goes all IoT is when it links to the Jawbone UP activity tracker. Information from the UP allows the Prep Pad to make recommendations based on the user’s activity level. Say you just went for a run. By linking to the UP, the prep pad knows you’ve been exercising and can recommend the best foods and portions for recovery.
Got milk?
You’re hauling home a bag of warm chocolate chip cookies, the aroma is filling the car, and your plan is to skip right to dessert and down those cookies with a cold glass of milk. But wait, do you have any milk left? You can’t remember. You start to panic. Luckily, your ChillHub WiFi-connected refrigerator is equipped with Milky Weigh, the real-time milk jug monitoring device that keeps continuous track of your milk supply and can let you know if you need to stop at the convenience store. The device won’t save the world, but it will save you from having to wash down cookies with beverages that aren’t milk.
It’s really all about the coffee.
It’s going to be hard for the IoT to improve on the traditional hand-mug combination as a coffee delivery system, but it can help ensure you get your coffee when you need it most. The SleepSense sleep tracker by Samsung is made to monitor your breathing rate and movements so it can recommend ways to get a higher quality, deeper sleep and blah, blah, blah. For the committed coffee drinker, the real breakthrough here is how it can sense when you’re awake and turn on your IoT-connected coffee maker. That means no more reliance on coffee makers that start brewing at a set time with no consideration of smart/dumb work/play decisions from the prior night that might create a need for extra sleep in the morning. Speaking of which, an app for the Smarter Coffee machine can link to your wearable fitness tracker, tell whether you’ve had a bad night’s sleep, and recommend a stronger cup when you get up.
At Equinix, we’re always interested in what the Internet of Things is offering because the IoT can’t function without secure, instant and high-performance interconnection, and that’s what we deliver. Learn more about Equinix’s role in the IoT.
And check out the other posts in our “Things in the Internet of Things” series:
“The Internet of Things and the Deep Blue Sea”
“The Internet of Things and the World of Kitchen Gadgetry” (see above)
“The Internet of Things and Staying Healthy”
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