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It has been attempted before. But financial circumstances have frozen the progress of many a previous development in its tracks. With a hacked refrigerator, however, Innovation Lab has overtaken development on the inside. The first intelligent fridge in the world cost us a measly ten bucks.
From future scenario to reality
Did you small-talk, chat or SMS with your fridge today? Is the milk past its sell-by date? Am I out of butter? By now, we have written several lengthy and long-winded articles about it – this, the intelligent refrigerator; and now we're at it again. Why? Simply because the fridge talking to its owners and to the foodstuffs in its care has now become a reality. And we made it ourselves – well, almost…
The fridge has now become aware of its contents; and it is capable of establishing direct contact between you and their producers. Like you, the fridge is on the Internet and thus able to get hold of you – even on your mobile. It will let you know what you need to buy if you want to prepare a simmering beef stroganoff; also, it will alert you if you are out of chocolate-and-fruit flavoured ice cream.
But this is as much about security! In case a food producer detects a potential health hazard in a shipment, he can – via the fridge – send out a warning and withdraw the product in question.
Ten bucks worth of cupper wire, please!
We let our lab agent, Kim Otto, loose on the defenceless Siemens refrigerator. Kim, owner of the firm IOLite, outfitted the fridge with an RFID reader. Then the existing flatscreen was replaced by a touch screen with an embedded Postallo computer – a computer equipped with customised database and web software by PragmaSoft. This software was also used for last autumn's food project, The Helpful Food of the Future. Still, the fridge needed a boost: with surgical precision Kim hacked the Beta-Technic RFID reader and enhanced its operating efficiency using a homemade copper coil and an external transistor placed on a shelf inside the fridge.
Version 2.0 of the refrigerator has thus been equipped with a reader on its top shelf – a reader capable of transmitting in a higher frequency to the RFID tags appended to the foodstuff.
The resonance frequency occurring in the reader on the shelf will build up a tension high enough to transmit a response back to the antenna and – as compared with the 14 centimetres of version 1.0 – the signal now has a range of 22 centimetres.
Even though the principle behind the hacked fridge may appear a cumbersome and costly affair, this has not been the case. All it took was sponsored hard- and software plus 10 dollars worth of copper wire – and the world's very first intelligent refrigerator was a bona fide fact.
The media darling of all times
Despite being a prototype of a prototype, the fridge is fully operational; and it represents an excellent illustration of a future where the things surrounding us will give us access to information useful in our everyday lives. Perhaps this is the reason why, in Denmark, the fridge has already succeeded in hitting prime-time television, locally as nationally.
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From future scenario to reality
Did you small-talk, chat or SMS with your fridge today? Is the milk past its sell-by date? Am I out of butter? By now, we have written several lengthy and long-winded articles about it – this, the intelligent refrigerator; and now we're at it again. Why? Simply because the fridge talking to its owners and to the foodstuffs in its care has now become a reality. And we made it ourselves – well, almost…
The fridge has now become aware of its contents; and it is capable of establishing direct contact between you and their producers. Like you, the fridge is on the Internet and thus able to get hold of you – even on your mobile. It will let you know what you need to buy if you want to prepare a simmering beef stroganoff; also, it will alert you if you are out of chocolate-and-fruit flavoured ice cream.
But this is as much about security! In case a food producer detects a potential health hazard in a shipment, he can – via the fridge – send out a warning and withdraw the product in question.
Ten bucks worth of cupper wire, please!
We let our lab agent, Kim Otto, loose on the defenceless Siemens refrigerator. Kim, owner of the firm IOLite, outfitted the fridge with an RFID reader. Then the existing flatscreen was replaced by a touch screen with an embedded Postallo computer – a computer equipped with customised database and web software by PragmaSoft. This software was also used for last autumn's food project, The Helpful Food of the Future. Still, the fridge needed a boost: with surgical precision Kim hacked the Beta-Technic RFID reader and enhanced its operating efficiency using a homemade copper coil and an external transistor placed on a shelf inside the fridge.
Version 2.0 of the refrigerator has thus been equipped with a reader on its top shelf – a reader capable of transmitting in a higher frequency to the RFID tags appended to the foodstuff.
The resonance frequency occurring in the reader on the shelf will build up a tension high enough to transmit a response back to the antenna and – as compared with the 14 centimetres of version 1.0 – the signal now has a range of 22 centimetres.
Even though the principle behind the hacked fridge may appear a cumbersome and costly affair, this has not been the case. All it took was sponsored hard- and software plus 10 dollars worth of copper wire – and the world's very first intelligent refrigerator was a bona fide fact.
The media darling of all times
Despite being a prototype of a prototype, the fridge is fully operational; and it represents an excellent illustration of a future where the things surrounding us will give us access to information useful in our everyday lives. Perhaps this is the reason why, in Denmark, the fridge has already succeeded in hitting prime-time television, locally as nationally.
1 Comment Add this link to... Tell a friend
Comments
Related news at Engadget: http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/23/siemens-refrigerator-gets-hacked-adds-rfid-communication/
At BoingBoing: http://www.boingboing.net/2007/04/23/diy_smart_fridge.html