Photo: smartcan.app
Since everything tends to be smart and interconnected these days, from your door lock to your car, how about a smart trash can that can drive itself to the curb so you don’t have to?
Andrew Murray, founder and CEO of Rezzi, has an idea in this sense. It’s called SmartCan and the name is self-explanatory: this is a smart trash can that can be programmed to take itself to the curb for emptying, or you can drive it yourself there using a phone app.
SmartCan is not the actual can, but the motorized trash can attachment, which, by the way, works with any city-issued garbage can. You simply use the companion app to program a day and a location for the SmartCan, and it will carry out the chore for you without fail.
The SmartCan is still in prototype stage, with production having received a considerable bump after it won the Cool Idea award from Protolabs. Protolabs and Rezzi are now working together to bring this smart garbage can to the market by 2020, though an estimated price is yet to be announced. Based on Murray’s designs, Protolabs 3D-printed the sheet metal main body, the plastic cover and the drive train assembly.
Based on footage available on the SmartCan website, it does look like this smart garbage can uses a docking station. It may also need to be charged regularly, but Rezzi isn’t saying anything on that yet. As for how durable the attachment is, that remains to be seen: some trash collectors can be very rough with the cans they handle, so SmartCan will have to endure being slammed to the ground without breaking.
“We want to help people eliminate unnecessary chores from their daily lives,” Murray says. “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. Rezzi is looking to build on the progress of notable smart home and IoT companies to do our part in redefining this consumer landscape.”
SmartCan is not the actual can, but the motorized trash can attachment, which, by the way, works with any city-issued garbage can. You simply use the companion app to program a day and a location for the SmartCan, and it will carry out the chore for you without fail.
The SmartCan is still in prototype stage, with production having received a considerable bump after it won the Cool Idea award from Protolabs. Protolabs and Rezzi are now working together to bring this smart garbage can to the market by 2020, though an estimated price is yet to be announced. Based on Murray’s designs, Protolabs 3D-printed the sheet metal main body, the plastic cover and the drive train assembly.
Based on footage available on the SmartCan website, it does look like this smart garbage can uses a docking station. It may also need to be charged regularly, but Rezzi isn’t saying anything on that yet. As for how durable the attachment is, that remains to be seen: some trash collectors can be very rough with the cans they handle, so SmartCan will have to endure being slammed to the ground without breaking.
“We want to help people eliminate unnecessary chores from their daily lives,” Murray says. “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. Rezzi is looking to build on the progress of notable smart home and IoT companies to do our part in redefining this consumer landscape.”
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