Child Centric Food Advisory Enabled Smart System for Refrigerators

Innovative Smart appliances with an interactive approach and their consumers are growing exponentially. Smart refrigerators are such a prominent intelligent kitchenware and hence published studies on smart homes and smarter kitchen appliances have been around in recent years. Although published research is available on smart refrigerators which describe its use for managing items stored in it and advising its users with cooking methods etc., a targeted and consumer focused smart refrigeration system is still amiss. In this paper we propose and present a design-driven approach for a smart refrigerator which may function as a modified child centric food-advisory system. Today’s smart child needs the stimulus from a modernistic technology combined with interactive communication that may excite him to relish home-made food instead of packed, or readytoeat foods. Especially when a child returns home from a daylong school, it is effectual to have fridge which communicates. An interactive refrigerator with smart access and a food management system is proposed, with convertible see-through glass surface door. The door becomes transparent based on identification of people by a face recognition software system. To enhance the capabilities, software interface is Android driven telecommunication system. After the person is recognized, this Smart-Refrigeration System is capable of communicating the suggested food intake for the day, especially to children, back from school. The main intention behind this intelligent system is to encourage children to consume fresh homemade food. Daily fresh food specially prepared by multitasking and working mother(s) is kept in one designated compartment. Sensor enabled techniques informs mother about consumption of food placed in this compartment. “No consumption alert” is sent via SMS as monitoring application. The characteristics and design details of such a child centric the smart fridge, are presented in detail.