Internet of Bottles

Knowing when to top-up or replace bottles typically involves regularly monitoring the bottle to try and figure out how much is left and only occasionally actually topping up or replacing them. This is a huge waste of time and painful for the end user if the bottle actually becomes empty.

This might be a bottle of shampoo, washing up liquid or other household containers, bottles of salt, vinegar, ketchup, mayo, milk etc. at a fast food restaurant, or something more important like a bottle of wine on a restaurant table 🙂

For me this is the resin for the Form 1+ SLA printer down my local make space. I don’t want to spend an hour to go and find their is still plenty of resin in the bottles but I also don’t want the resin to run out and our members not be able to use the printer.

Naturally you want to avoid water or spillages from the bottle getting into the electronics, hence avoiding a power connector is essential. It would also benefit from being stand-alone, or at-least being powered from a non-attached source, hence using wireless power becomes very beneficial.

This project will measure the weight of the bottle to determine usage, RFID/NFC to identify the bottle, a wireless power system and a micro-controller (with wireless internet) to report the status.