A product idea that I don't know how to realize | Hacker News Reader

A product idea that I don't know how to realize

4 pointsjacquesm10 comments

Hello HN'ers,

The other day there was a call for 3 things that irritate you, I missed the re-run at the end of the day because of the time difference but I did come up with something only I haven't the foggiest on how to make it work, only the feeling that it should be possible. It is not at all computer related though.

Almost everything that you consume has a 'best before date'.

You're buying a pack of fruit juice, milk, pickles, jam or whatever else that is somewhat perishable after opening it, even if you keep it refrigerated.

Then, after a day you go to the fridge and you stare at the carton... when did I open that thing ?

Especially with more than one person in the house you could be looking at something that was opened yesterday or it has been sitting in the fridge for longer than is good for it (and you).

So, the idea is this: something that gets activated on opening the container, and when a chemical timer expires it will change colour to warn you that the contents are no longer safe for consumption.

For me this matters because my stomach gets upset very easily and it takes a long time to get back to normal (past medical condition), so I end up erring on the side of caution and tossing out stuff that is quite probably still ok for me to eat.

Of course, this is just a convenience, I could slap a post-it or something like that on the containers when they were opened, but I'm a lazy person and wouldn't mind having this automated.

It's definitely not a world-class problem but maybe it is worth solving for enough people that someone could make a bundle on it.

Criticism welcome!

First, it would be 'use by', not 'best before'.

But you don't really mean 'use by' either, you mean: 'consume within n days of opening'.

How about a simple, lo-tech solution: when you open it, write the date on the label -- then check how many days have passed when you want to eat it. No blue-sky RD, or complex industrial production needed!

> I could slap a post-it or something like that on the containers when they were opened, but I'm a lazy person and wouldn't mind having this automated.

I knew someone was going to say that :)

It's just that I'm aware that I can do that, but in practice it doesn't happen.

I think you'd have the same trouble with the automated way.

The doohicky that does it would have to be programmed to be catered to you, I should think - particularly if you have a sensitive stomach. I've known a few people in your situation, and they prefer to throw things out well before their "best before" date.

This means it's a personal preference and as the first commenter states: a "use by" date.

Wouldn't that end up being the same as a sticky note?

I think there's a genuine need for this kind of solution for medicine, which can have much more serious consequences than an upset stomach. The economics would make more sense too, as it would be much easier to justify adding a few cents to a $50 antibiotic than to a $1 yogurt bottle. Alas, I don't have a technical solution, although I suspect a very simple electronic circuit might do the trick.

Announcing the Agar-Pack!

This a clear plastic bubble containing a sample of bacteria and a quantity of agar.

Squeeze the bubble gently and the internal membrane separating the bacteria from the agar is broken, but the outer bubble remains intact. Now stick the bubble onto the packaging of any food product you've just opened. You now have a visual indication of the state of the food inside.

That won't work. The rate at which different foods spoil after they're opened varies dramatically. Foods with a lot of salt in them, for example, stay good for a long time, while my carrot juice spoils within days of opening it. Not to mention, until you break the seal, what are those bacteria using for food?

I just write the date on things with a sharpie when I open them. A technological solution here seems to me to be more likely to complicate than simplify.

clever!

That is the kind of thing I had in mind, something low tech.

The nice thing about your solution is that it automatically corrects for lower temperatures (or higher ones). Good thinking!

Cheap barcode scanner + Atmel AVR + strong refrigerator magnet.

The first time you scan your product, it memorizes the date. Every time after, it indicates the product age with leds, sound, or an LCD. You keep it stuck to your fridge, scan groceries going in/being opened, scan anything questionable again before use to check the age.

You'd have to keep a sheet of one-off barcodes for stuff like restaurant leftovers, fruit, etc.

As the userbase grows, you could support downloadable tables of expiration dates for various foods(barcodes) so you wouldn't have to even think about that.

Somebody could probably make "a bundle" by mass-marketing a gadget like this, but that would make me angry. Thinking like a user rather than an entrepreneur here, I'd prefer to see it as a cheap, hackable, perhaps Arduino compatible electronics kit on Sparkfun.com or the like.

I can imagine seeing some sort of label maker where you can select n days, n weeks, from now and having it spit out a use-by date.

Not high tech, but something you could sell with a convincing enough infomercial and a Billy Mays look-alike

what about a solution that relies on cameras in the fridge/kitchen area and AI that can tell you are opening a bottle of something? The code would have to detect the various bottles maybe do OCR on the labels and build a db of what is in your kitchen. Maybe the packaging could be made more easier to scan but maybe not.You could even "show" your new groceries to the system or it could ask you what certain things are that it couldn't ID.

The point is that this system would be something you could install and not impact the supply chain with a lot of new requirements on the packaging.

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