Pretty much everyone has had the experience of finding forgotten food in the fridge that spoiled before any of it was eaten. The Nudge Tag system is designed to keep that from happening, via color-changing electronic dongles.
Developed by Virginia-based startup Tugiba, the Nudge Tag system consists of two main parts: a cloud-connected Puck device that's magnetically mounted on the front of the refrigerator door, and multiple Tags that are hung on or clipped onto foods.
When the user is putting a food item in the fridge for the first time, they start by twisting a dial on the Puck – doing so advances a digital display, which indicates how many days are left before that item will expire (based on its use-by date, etc). They then press a Bluetooth pairing button on one of the Tags, which is held near the Puck. This transfers the dialed-in data to the Tag.
Finally, that Tag is attached to the food item, which is placed inside the refrigerator. Every time the fridge door is subsequently opened, the Puck detects the movement, and responds by wirelessly triggering all of the currently active Tags to illuminate in one of three colors – green means there's plenty of time left to consume the food, yellow means it should be used soon, and red means that it has expired.
Additionally, both the Puck's LCD touchscreen and an accompanying app display the number of Tags that are currently assigned to foods, along with the color status of each Tag. The Puck's lithium-polymer battery should reportedly be good for about 15 days per charge, while each Tag's replaceable coin cell battery ought to last for up to one year.
Should you be interested, the Nudge Tag system is presently the subject of a Kickstarter campaign. Assuming it reaches production, a pledge of US$109 will get you a package consisting of one Puck and six Tags, with $148 required for a one-Puck/12-Tag kit. Voice-activated Tags may later be offered as a stretch goal.
You can see the system in use, in the video below.
Sources: Kickstarter, Nudge
