Researchers Have Found A Way That Turns Your Dumb Appliances Into Smart Ones

One of the benefits of smart home appliances and gadgets is that it lets you monitor them from a computer or a mobile device, essentially giving you more control over them. However, it would not necessarily be possible to furnish your entire home with smart appliances because it can be expensive, not to mention given that there is no existing standard, it can be troublesome.

However, thanks to the efforts of researchers over a Cornell, they have developed a system called VibroSense that can essentially turn your existing dumb appliances into smart ones. How this work is through a combination of lasers that can detect vibrations given off by your appliances, along with a deep learning network.

VibroSense works by detecting the vibrations that your appliances give off, and based on their initial tests, they have found that the system has a 96% accuracy rating in identifying different activities done by home appliances. While VibroSense won’t magically give your dumb appliances smart features, it will give users more insight into what their appliances are doing.

This can help in many ways such as energy monitoring, where it might notice if you have a light that is not turned off, food that has not been taken out of the microwave, clothes not removed from the washing machine, or if you have a leaky faucet. While promising, don’t expect to see VibroSense hit the market anytime soon.

The researchers are expected to present their findings at a conference as well as address some issues such as privacy, where there are some concerns that the system could accidentally pick up on neighboring houses, especially if used in apartments where multiple units are close to each other.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Home
Tags: Connected Objects, IoT (Internet of Things)