Chores have been the bane of both kids and adults for about four generations now and one of the biggest irritations, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, is taking out the trash.
Not like, Westworld-style, shoot-you-in-the-head robots, but just a cool new invention by smart home company Rezzi that’s a trash can that takes itself out. Heck, it even just won an award from digital manufacturing leader Protolabs, a company celebrating its 20th year in business this year that specializes in making 3D-printed sheet metal and injection-molded custom parts.
Rezzi’s new trash can is called the SmartCan, which eliminates the need to drag your garbage and recycling bins up to the curb on trash day. It is the official recipient of Protolabs’ latest Cool Idea award for innovation in automated consumer electronics technology.
The SmartCan is motorized and will respond to commands from the corresponding mobile app and take itself out. Users can set the specific day and time they need their trash to be at the curb for pickup by your local garbage professionals, which if you’re lucky don’t wake you up at dawn on Mondays like some of us.
“We want to help people eliminate unnecessary chores from their daily lives,” Rezzi CEO and SmartCan creator Andrew Murray said in a release. “We see an opportunity to take IoT beyond just turning off lights or turning on music, and really help alleviate the burden of the mundane physical tasks that everyone faces.”
As usual, no word on price, availability, and barely a word on when you can buy the SmartCan, although we can report that Rezzi plans to bring the device to market by late 2020. That said, the SmartCan, which clearly came with some kind of monetary value and probably some additional backing from Protolabs, has been rapidly pushed into product prototyping and testing, bumping up its production schedule by half a year at the minimum.
It doesn’t hurt that Protolabs’ specialty is making parts for things like the SmartCan. The device’s entire mechanical structure was built by Protolabs based on Rezzi’s design specs, including the main body fabricated from sheet metal, the drive train assembly, and the plastic cover, made by a 3D printer, no less.
“Much like what autonomous robotic vacuum cleaners have done for keeping a clean home and what smart doorbells have done for home security, SmartCan completes the recurring task of taking out the garbage,” Vicki Holt, president and CEO of Protolabs, said in a statement. “We’re seeing more and more autonomous products in the consumer electronics industry, aimed at reducing time spent doing less desirable things and enabling more time for valued activities.”
Outdoor security cameras are not always practical if you live in an apartment or rental. Drilling into an exterior wall may be off-limits, while pointing a regular indoor camera through a window can create another problem once reflections start showing up after dark.
Baseus is trying to solve both issues with the new PrimeSentinel W1, a $69.99 security camera designed specifically to monitor the outdoors through glass. It mounts directly to a window without drilling and uses a 4K Starlight sensor with an F1.0 aperture for full-color monitoring during the day and at night.
This post is brought to you in paid partnership with Best Buy.
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With AI progressing so fast, it's only a matter of time before we start getting AI companions like the ones we used to see in movies like R2-D2, Wall-E, or Baymax. Now, Singapore-based OKA Technology has unveiled Mori, a cute little AI companion that looks less like a conventional home robot and more like someone turned the Pokémon Foongus into a table lamp.
Mori isn't meant to clean your house or control your smart home, but to serve as what OKA calls a "Nature Companion." It uses subtle movements, warm lighting, nature-inspired sounds, and small reactions to make its presence around the house feel calming rather than distracting. Mori can sit quietly while you read, sway along to music, welcome you when you enter a room, or encourage you to slow down for a moment without requiring a screen or a conversation.