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My dream: to have every supermarket item embedded with an RFID tag so I can have a constantly up-to-date pantry inventory, with notifications of out-of-stock or

My dream: to have every supermarket item embedded with an RFID tag so I can have a constantly up-to-date pantry inventory, with notifications of out-of-stock or near-expired products. Yes, I am too lazy.

pbmonster 3y ago
Would also be interesting for household garbage recycling at the recycling plant. If you can ask your garbage "what are you" and it responds "I'm a polystyrene yogurt cup with an aluminum lid", separating it gets really easy.
- westurner 3y ago
  There should be sufficient incentive for trash and recycling service providers to implement sensing and sorting now that "Making hydrogen from waste plastic could pay for itself" (2023) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37886955 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37886955
- supertrope 3y ago
  If manufacturers had to pay for waste management they would immediately reduce single use packaging consumption. Yogurt tubs instead of single serve cups. Beer bottles can be standardized, collected after use, sanitized, refilled, and put back onto grocery shelves.
  - slow_typist 3y ago
    In Germany they have to, but most of the plastic still gets burnt. Market failure. With paper, glass, aluminium and tin plate the numbers (and the economics) are better.
- petemir 3y ago
  At least in some parts of Italy (I was in the Lombardy region) you pay an annual garbage tax where they provide you yearly with a predetermined amount of bags containing an RFID tag. You can still ask for more bags if needed, and I guess that in that case your tax would get adjusted depending on usage (which they track with the RFIDs). Kind of unsettling though that they could link your trash back to you.
jayemar 3y ago
Why isn't this possible with barcodes?
- jfim 3y ago
  Barcodes on products only have UPC/EAN information, which identifies a product, but not its expiration or batch.
  - petemir 3y ago
    Furthermore, I find that barcodes are a bit more picky w.r.t. how to scan them, while RFID is easier.
    - slow_typist 3y ago
      Depends of the orientation of the tag and the background interference from other sources (or other tags).
- slow_typist 3y ago
  It is possible if the barcode would carry longer serial numbers for identification, not classification of the certain product. The dream of rfid proponents in the nineties was to push a whole pallet through a gate and get a super quick control of packing list at arrival. That would not be possible with optical scanning without unpacking the whole pallet. In production, under somewhat controlled conditions, Barcode ids for parts are used for decades.
hiatus 3y ago
I'm surprised retailers like Whole Foods haven't added something like this to purchases made in store tied to an Amazon account. At the point of sale they have access to best-buy dates, etc (or could even add it during inventorying) and could use that data to alert you to restock with better granularity than sending a reminder based on your shopping trip frequency.
Arch-TK 3y ago
I wrote a system for this for my house. Entry of the expiry date is manual, and I haven't implemented notifcations yet, but barcodes solve most of the rest of the issues.

pbmonster 3y ago

Would also be interesting for household garbage recycling at the recycling plant. If you can ask your garbage "what are you" and it responds "I'm a polystyrene yogurt cup with an aluminum lid", separating it gets really easy.

westurner 3y ago
There should be sufficient incentive for trash and recycling service providers to implement sensing and sorting now that "Making hydrogen from waste plastic could pay for itself" (2023) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37886955 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37886955
supertrope 3y ago
If manufacturers had to pay for waste management they would immediately reduce single use packaging consumption. Yogurt tubs instead of single serve cups. Beer bottles can be standardized, collected after use, sanitized, refilled, and put back onto grocery shelves.
- slow_typist 3y ago
  In Germany they have to, but most of the plastic still gets burnt. Market failure. With paper, glass, aluminium and tin plate the numbers (and the economics) are better.
petemir 3y ago
At least in some parts of Italy (I was in the Lombardy region) you pay an annual garbage tax where they provide you yearly with a predetermined amount of bags containing an RFID tag. You can still ask for more bags if needed, and I guess that in that case your tax would get adjusted depending on usage (which they track with the RFIDs). Kind of unsettling though that they could link your trash back to you.

jayemar 3y ago

Why isn't this possible with barcodes?

jfim 3y ago
Barcodes on products only have UPC/EAN information, which identifies a product, but not its expiration or batch.
- petemir 3y ago
  Furthermore, I find that barcodes are a bit more picky w.r.t. how to scan them, while RFID is easier.
  - slow_typist 3y ago
    Depends of the orientation of the tag and the background interference from other sources (or other tags).
slow_typist 3y ago
It is possible if the barcode would carry longer serial numbers for identification, not classification of the certain product. The dream of rfid proponents in the nineties was to push a whole pallet through a gate and get a super quick control of packing list at arrival. That would not be possible with optical scanning without unpacking the whole pallet. In production, under somewhat controlled conditions, Barcode ids for parts are used for decades.

hiatus 3y ago

I'm surprised retailers like Whole Foods haven't added something like this to purchases made in store tied to an Amazon account. At the point of sale they have access to best-buy dates, etc (or could even add it during inventorying) and could use that data to alert you to restock with better granularity than sending a reminder based on your shopping trip frequency.

Arch-TK 3y ago

I wrote a system for this for my house. Entry of the expiry date is manual, and I haven't implemented notifcations yet, but barcodes solve most of the rest of the issues.