Imagine you are at the grocery store and wondering what you need for the next week – if you could only peep inside your fridge now, shopping could be easier. With the new smart fridge from General Electric in your kitchen, you could use a smartphone and ask the fridge what it lacks. The smart fridge will tell you exactly how much beer, soda, milk, and even how many eggs or separate vegetables it is left with. Actually, GE ran a contest taking ideas from users that could be turned into serviceable and manufacturable accessories. They announced the winners at the CES 2015 at Las Vegas. MakerBot Industries, LLC in Brooklyn, NY, is offering not only a MakerBot Replicator, but also a 3D Printer that allows engineers, traditional product designers and even consumers to prototype their ideas rapidly. Successful designs will be manufactured at FirstBuild at their microfactory in a fraction of the time it normally takes.
GE’s ChillHub is the first major home appliance that consumers can base their prototypes on to make their own accessories for a smart refrigerator. The ChillHub can tell your smartphone how much milk is currently left, because it has a milk weighing arrangement that your phone can query when you are at the grocery store. Besides the milk weighing arrangement, the ChillHub has several USB hubs allowing you to add your own plethora of smart accessories and sensors to let your smartphone see what else you need.
For proof of concept, GE and MakerBot, in collaboration with Thingiverse, came up with the Icebox Challenge, which had about 200 entries. The first-prize winning entry was an Odor-eating Hotshot. It uses a standard box of baking soda, but maximizes its odor-canceling capabilities, keeping track of its presence in the refrigerator and alerting users when to replace it.
The second prize was a bottle holder that helps the user organize different beverages while doubling as a chip-clip that keeps bagged snacks fresh. The third prize was the Butter Pig that dispenses standard butter sticks to simplify cooking in the kitchen, measuring of recipes and making toast.
The ChillHub is suitable for adding third-party accessories because of its eight USB ports. The ports are capable of delivering up to 2A each. That makes it very easy to add accessories that can be accessed from the Internet via their built-in Wi-Fi. GE calls the ChillHub architecture a community-generated product, which is based on an open-source iOS app. This app allows users to easily access the accessories plugged into the USB ports. Other fridge owners can hack their own appliance and make DIY upgrades using the FirstBuild.
FirstBuild community members conceived the design. They used 3D printers as a means of prototyping accessories quickly. The first accessory to be designed was the Milky Weigh that tells how much milk it holds. You can buy the complete Milky Weigh from FirstBuild, or if you are more adventurous, download the entire design and 3D print the components. The Green Bean circuit board from FirstBuild provides the electronics that actually weighs the milk for Milky Weigh.
