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Vessyl, the smart cup that knows exactly what you're drinking
- dodders 12y agoDo I have to take this to the pub for my beer too?
- Geee 12y agoThat's very damn cool technology-wise. It would probably be useful in some sci-fi setting where you are provided with many unknown substances and you need to detect whether something is drinkable or not.
- kolev 12y agoNo information on how it works, what material it's made of, etc. The last thing I want is all my liquid intake to go thru a plastic cup.
- silverlight 12y agoThis can really sample how much sugar is in a custom smoothie? If so that's amazing.
- toomuchtodo 12y agoCan you determine the amount of sugar in a liquid using a low-voltage current? Then possibly, yes. After some quick googling, it appears this may use the same principal that diabetes glucose monitors use.
- JustResign 12y agoThe product seems pretty cool, but people really do use the spacebar to scroll. Headers like the one on this site make doing so very difficult. There's probably a CSS correction that can be applied.
- volker48 12y agoThis sounds absurdly stupid. I thought it was a joke.
- willis77 12y ago> "We know being active is important, so your Vessyl connects with popular activity trackers for more accurate net calories and hydration awareness." Phew, I was worried about this. If I can't sync my Vessyl to my fitbit to my strava profile with nike+ misfit shine integrations, how the hell am I supposed to know exactly how many steps I need to take to optimize my area under the fun curve subject to the constraints that I lose 1.6 pounds but can still eat artisanal cuisine?! The other day I almost went for a walk in the woods, but my Vessyl was dropping its bluetooth connection, so I retreated to the safety of my San Francisco apartment.
- altschuler 12y agoExactly my thought, the video seems satirical. Especially when the guy pours beer in the cup and it tells him that it's beer, after which he gives it a "that's right" nod.
- sp332 12y agoIt's more that it puts the info into your phone automatically. Of course you know it's beer, but writing it down in a food journal is a bit of a hassle, and doing math on it to see how many calories you drank each day this month is tedious enough to be worth automating.
- normloman 12y agoWhat problem is this cup solving? Is it that hard to figure out what you're drinking? (Hint: look at the bottle when you pour, and don't take drinks from strangers.) Is it that hard to keep yourself hydrated? (Just drink when you're thirsty.) And how is a calorie counting cup gonna help me lose weight? (Just DRINK WATER). I want something that simplifies my life. Not something that needlessly complicates something as simple as drinking without giving me added benefits.
- endersshadow 12y agoRoofies. It solves the problem of roofies.
- normloman 12y agoThe website makes no such claim. So no, I don't think the problem of roofies will be solved until certain men learn that sex isn't something you take by force. Instead, we have a 100 dollar cup that peforms a neat trick.
- CanSpice 12y agoThere are already cheaper solutions to this: http://www.drinkspikedetector.com/howitworks.htm http://www.drinkspikedetector.com/howitworks.htm for example.
- ldng 12y agoNot really. I don't see discotheques or bars buying it. They generally buy the cheapest plastic glass they can find for the former and the later have drink companies offering them free glasses. As for private parties, where your cup is likely to be lost or broken, people won't bring this expensive cups with them. To me it's more, "lets surf on the Internet of Things". As already said, I don't see the need. Maybe if one day it become as cheap as normal cups. But not now. Not I saying roofies are not a problem. Just that is not a solution, IMHO.
- watty 12y agoKeeping track of what you're drinking, how much you're drinking and how many calories your drinking is what this solves. It clearly isn't useful to you but it's automating a task that some people don't want to do manually. Why do you need a pedometer when you can count steps? We can certainly argue the usefulness of this device for the average joe or how small their market may be but arguing that it doesn't solve any problems is silly.
- nicholassmith 12y agoI'm wonder if this means we've hit peak 'smart<x>', or if we're still some distance out. Although I do like the hydration level stuff, I'm just not certain I think a $200($99 if you get in early) cup is the best solution for it.
- timothya 12y agoI'm not sure why exactly I would need this (I don't need a cup to tell me what I'm drinking, and I don't find it difficult to keep track of my beverage habits). This is interesting from a technical perspective, though. How does it know what's in the cup?
- woodchuck64 12y agoNeed? I didn't need a smartphone when I bought one, but it changed my lifestyle such that it is now irreplaceable. How do they do it? I really don't know but this article on electrochemical biosensor arrays for "electronic tongue" is interesting: http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijelc/2012/986025/ http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijelc/2012/986025/
- troymc 12y agoA smartphone is a telephone, maps, address book, games, music player, ebook reader, web browser, GPS, microphone, pedometer, barometer, and more. This thing is a cup.
- localcasestudy 12y agoDid you really just type this? haha Well this thing is a cup, spectroscopic device, hydration tracker,and daily caloric planner, that integrates with your smartphone through bluetooth, while charging wirelessly.
- mbreese 12y agoIt is all of those things, but it's raison d'être is to hold liquids until they are consumed. It's a very advanced cup. And in order to be useful, you need to drink everything with that cup.
- justathrow2k 12y ago> And in order to be useful, you need to drink everything with that cup. This is a very important point and really limits the usefulness of this cup. Lots of empty calories that happen from drinking happen on the go at places like bars, restaurants, or coffee shops - are we expecting people to bring their cups with them everywhere and empty out their beverages into their smart cup before drinking?
- ivan_ah 12y agoThis is very interesting. Automating parts of self-measurement is a good way to get people to do it. I could use this to cut down on the caffeine... lol... would be cool if the lid locks shut after 400mg of caffeine. No more!
- orenmazor 12y agoI keep bouncing between "this is an excellently executed troll!" and "…does this actually work?!"
- owenversteeg 12y agoI'm guessing that it either uses absorption spectrography or a motor, two electrodes, a balance, and a large database of mass/conductivity/viscosity data.
- woah 12y agoApril fools comes early.
- sliverstorm 12y agoI have only one question. Can that web page be any more resource-intensive? It's basically a slideshow as I scroll.
- TheAceOfHearts 12y ago$99 for a smart cup that will add to the list of items I have to regularly charge. Seems like a cool concept, but it's too expensive and the idea of having YET ANOTHER item to charge really pushes me away. I love that people are doing these kinds of things, though.
- mcmillhj 12y agoIt would be nice to know how it works, literally the only question I have is not answered on the FAQ page.
- andylei 12y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law
- saganus 12y agoI'm not comfortable buying a $100 cup if I Can't find the "How does it work?" question in the FAQ. I mean, I'm not expecting a full technical detail, but something more than "It’s not magic, but close to it…". It's easier to find out if it will work as you expect it if at least gives some hint of what kind of technology it's using. Or am I missing any text that says so? I would certainly consider doing a pre-order if I had some more info on its inner workings. It looks like a neat product and even one that I would like to try out just for fun, and also to see if this technology actually works. (I'm not counting the video which I didn't look at because I really prefer not having to sit through several minutes of pretty pictures and logos and such to find out how the product works) So am I alone in this? is it so rare for people to ask how a device that claims near-magical properties work?
- mscarborough 12y agoNo, it seems pretty basic. If you had sat through the video it would still be 'magic'. But hey, you can get it for $99 right now instead of $199 later!
- saganus 12y agoSo even the video doesn't explain this? Well that was unexpected. I really really find it odd that people that can engineer something like this don't even want to show a little bit of the magic they created? Sounds like snake-oil to me then.. even if it's not, that's how it looks.
- click170 12y agoThis. I left the website feeling disappointed. Those are very pretty pictures they have, and a pretty spiffy website, but it feels like the marketing team went a little bit too nuts. The sheer lack of info about how it works honestly left me second-guessing if this was a genuine product or some kind of we'd-like-to-build-this-eventually-but-don't-know-how-yet pipe-dream that they weren't allowed to post to Kickstarter because they didn't have a prototype yet. Where's the How It Works section? Not on the front page? Forgivable. Not in the FAQ? Not forgivable. At least it's good to hear they didn't tuck it away in the video, doing that scores even lower than not having it in the FAQ in my books.
- yankoff 12y ago>In most cases, you will see the specific brands and flavors of what you are drinking when you open the app. It'd be very interesting to know how the heck this thing works.
- ing33k 12y agoI thought it was mac pro
- markbnj 12y agoUp next: C'mode, the smart toilet that knows what you've been eating, and offers helpful advice intended to prevent indigestion and weight gain, while optimizing your grocery list and restaurant reservations.
- wuliwong 12y agoHahahah, I feel that would be difficult to market but probably really useful. I'm sure you can learn all types of things about yourself from your stool. I guess when you sat down, it would have some voice recognition to know it was you, like "Hello C'mode!"?
- disillusioned 12y agoWeight and body fat, like the Withings scale.
- vans 12y agoOMG, At least a device to tell me when i'm thirty ! I'm just waiting for another device to tell me when i'm hungry and then, i could replace my brain, stomac and body by stupid pieces of hardware. That's the product i was looking all my life, for sure ! ...
- SrslyJosh 12y agoYou've gotta be fucking kidding me.
- iandanforth 12y agoI hope they are taking a page from the Tesla playbook. The people who need this device are not the ones who are going to pre-order it today or buy it when it comes to retail. But to reach the broader consumer market they need to target high-end, trendy, and rich consumers, so they can eventually produce an affordable (or better yet, ubiquitous) technology. To complete the analogy, I hope this is the "Roadster" with a clear goal of an affordable sedan in the future. Who do I think needs this technology? People who drink soda and don't know how many calories they are consuming. Not only does it cause a huge percentage of obesity cases (http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/sugary-drinks-fact-sheet/ http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/sugary-drinks-fa...) but the large doses of caffeine and phosphoric acid in Colas can do serious damage to your bones! (http://www.webmd.com/osteoporosis/features/soda-osteoporosis http://www.webmd.com/osteoporosis/features/soda-osteoporosis). Unfortunately there is a strong correlation between poverty and soda consumption. (http://www.livescience.com/35127-poverty-soda-pop-consumption-101103.html http://www.livescience.com/35127-poverty-soda-pop-consumptio...) So if you want to make a real impact you're going to have to make this cheap and easy enough to be sold in bulk at Walmart. (Please excuse the stereotyping, it is, of course, not this simple.)
- egypturnash 12y agoI think really what the people who "need" this device need is better access to good food, and the money to buy it. I mean, really, I am pretty sure most poor people know they kinda eat like shit. If they had the money to spend on good food (prepared or raw materials), and the time to sit in a restaurant for a half hour, or to cook stuff, they probably would. A higher minimum wage, maybe even a basic income, would go a lot further than "here is a $5 cup that can make you feel guilty about not being able to afford to drink good things".
- iandanforth 12y agoIMO it's an education problem. I used to work in bone density testing and almost universally people were shocked to learn that cola might hurt their bones. Ironically being heavy means higher estrogen levels and a heavier load to carry (which is exercise for your bones) so the effect was sometimes canceled out. But if you don't know that there is a lot of sugar in some beverages, or you don't do the math to figure out how many servings of the "low cal" beverage you're getting when you drink multiple 2 liter bottles a day then you're screwed! Just like activity trackers can help improve health by improving awareness (and yes, maybe some guilt) I still think any food/calorie tracking technology could help. And remember here we're talking about nourishment for which there is a nearly free and readily available alternative; water.
- vicbrooker 12y agoI'm interested to see how it handles minestrone soup...
- skjfhskjhf 12y agoFor people with no short term memory or taste buds, wave of the future...
- egypturnash 12y agoI wonder if it can tell when you're drinking Soylent.
- colinyoung 12y agoThe monetization on this seems extremely likely to be selling drinking habit data to specific brands, since it can recognize brands and even varieties within brands.
- qdot76367 12y agoWhoever writes the first beer pong app for this will be an instant billionaire. Or will be invited to a lot of parties. One of those two.
- swang 12y agoI'm going to wait until I get more information before I pass judgement on it... But I wonder if they purposely delay displaying the contents of the liquid. It seemed a bit comical in the video when the guy pours something into the cup and it takes a couple of seconds for the animation to run before it displays, "beer" I think you'll get a lot of poking at that aspect of it because humans generally know what they are pouring into the cup, so taking so long to identify it makes it seem slow/laggy. It gives the feeling of "why does it need 5 seconds to tell that it's water. I know it's water instantly, why doesn't it as well?"
- disillusioned 12y agoHis expression is _fantastic_, though. "I _am_ drinking beer!"
- pyrohawk 12y agoWhat happens if you pour in american light beer? Does it say it is water?
- navs 12y agoThis is pretty nifty. Of course the problem is I need to carry it everywhere and empty my drinks into it for it to really work. If I have to carry it everywhere, I have to make sure it's charged. So now before I go out in the morning I have yet another device that I need to ensure is fully charged for the rest of the day.
- dalore 12y agoI like this. I would also like a toilet that analysed my waste and tell me things.