When you hear the term “Internet of Things,” you probably think of smartwatches and thermostats. Well, the startups at Dreamforce’s Internet of Things Cabin want you to know there’s a lot more to IoT — they’ve got ideas for everything from measuring pressure on a replacement knee or hip joint to rating your “toilet experience” at a public restroom.
Here’s some of the other stuff we saw on display down in sunny San Francisco.
The internet of getting around
A bit like an electric Bixi bike, Scoots hang out around downtown San Francisco until someone needs them. With the Scoot app you can find and reserve a nearby scooter, and once you’re aboard you use the app to start the engine and track your speed and location.
The internet of grilling right
If you’re really bad at getting your steak the way you like it, then like Salesforce CTO Charlie Isaacs, you can shell out $9,000 for one of these babies. Use your phone to tell the Lynx infrared electric BBQ what you want to cook, how much it weighs and how you want it done, and it will send you alerts when you need to flip your meat. (Or just tell it yourself. It’s voice-activated too.)
The internet of loving your pet too much
Sure Flap is a smart pet door that only opens when it detects an RFID in your pet’s collar. The IoT part is that it lets you know when your pets are in or out, with different identifiers if you have more than one to keep track of, and even gives you real-time analytics on how much time Fluffy spends outdoors. The $199 price is a little steep, but delivery is free!
The internet of bros
The internet of saving water
This little utility, built by Symmons, is attached behind your showerhead and tracks the flow rate and temperature of the water you use, displayed on a waterproof screen inside the shower. The idea is to incentivize people to conserve water by telling them how much they’re using and how much they’ll save if they get out after a certain amount of time. Targeted at hotels wanting to encourage guests to use less water, Symmons hopes to eventually gamify it and market it to consumers, too.
Deloitte Digital couldn’t decide which of its team members was the best Foosball player, so they built sensors into their table to track their goals and wins. Not satisfied that the player with the most wins was actually the “best,” they even use a complex algorithm to rank them against one another based on relative performance. Dreamforce attendees could swipe their badges at the table to create their own player profile and add it to Deloitte’s leaderboard.
The internet of beer (yes, beer)
SteadyServ offers a sensor that will measure how much beer is left in the keg and let you know when you need a new one. Actually, it’ll do a little more than that — it gives the bar manager a much better sense of how much inventory they’re moving and how much of each draught they’ll need to order next time to avoid running out of the best-selling brew. SteadyServ points out in its brochure that more than 100 million Americans every year are told by a bartender that the keg is dry — and they order 33% less to drink when that happens. (Though we’re pretty sure the whole display was just an excuse to give out free beer.)
