How many times have you gone shopping for groceries and when you get back home and open your fridge, you find out there was an essential ingredient for dinner, you forgot to buy? It has probably happened multiple times, right?
Well, Microsoft has teamed up with a refrigerator maker Liebherr to make you the SmartDeviceBox. It is like your typical refrigerator except it keeps track of all your groceries stocked inside it. It will let you know what is about to get finished and what was finished in a smart shopping list relayed to your smartphone.
So the next time you are at the supermarket, you simply pull up the smart shopping list on your smartphone and pick those items. That way, you will neither forget to buy any groceries, nor buy a grocery that you still have enough of inside your fridge.
Microsoft principal data scientist, Timothy Hazen, says in a blog post says the SmartDeviceBox will transform your fridge “beyond cooling comestibles, to reminding people what they need at the market.”
How the Microsoft SmartDeviceBox works
The SmartDeviceBox is an Internet of Things (IoT) device. It is connected to the internet, thus accessible from all your other internet enabled devices. It uses cameras and object recognition programs to track what is stocked in your refrigerator.
One of the programs it uses is machine learning technology, such as the one Microsoft uses in its AI digital assistant, Cortana. Thus, the SmartDeviceBox keeps an inventory list of things inside your fridge, and you can view and manage this list from your smartphone, tablet, and other devices.
So you will never have to open your fridge again to check on what you still have, what is about to get finished, and what was finished. You can do that online from anywhere; probably when you are at the supermarket and wondering what groceries you need to buy.
The SmartDeviceBox is operated via a mobile app, which runs on Windows Mobile, Android, and iOS. The app also has a voice module, new items can be added to the shopping list anytime.
If there is any problem with the appliance, you will be notified immediately by means of an alarm message to your smartphone or tablet.
The SmartDeviceBox is still a prototype project Microsoft and Liebherr are working on. Also, the two haven’t given official communications on when we can expect this smart fridge to start selling in the market.
As a consumer, you could be interested in the Samsung smart fridge running on Android that was released during the last #CES (2016) in Las Vegas.