Portion-Control Application
The Portion-Control application is for adults wishing to monitor the calories they’re consuming, as well as additional nutritional information about their meal, such as total carbs. SmartDish displays the calories for each dish, as well as the calorie total for the meal. If the calorie total is more than desired, the diner is advised to reduce the amount of food in a particular dish. Future versions of this application will log nutrition for each meal, and also compare total calorie intake with calories expended according to a wearable fitness tracker, and inform the diner how eating the food might affect their weight and overall health.
Eating-Coach Application
In the Eating-Coach application, a fun cartoon character coach encourages a novice eater to eat the food their parent places on the dishes. If SmartDish determines that the child is not eating, the coach asks the child to “play a game” and eat some of a particular food. After the child eats, they are congratulated and rewarded with a fun song and an educational fact about the food. If the child stops eating, the music pauses, and the coach encourages them to finish their food. When all the food is eaten, SmartDish can text the parent that Junior just joined the “clean-plate club!”
Educational-Video Application
The Educational-Video application is for more advanced children who have mastered the Eating-Coach application and know how to eat by themselves, but sometimes still need a little extra encouragement to finish all their food. In this application, a playlist of fun, food-education videos is streamed from the internet as long as SmartDish determines that the child is still eating. If the child stops eating, SmartDish pauses the video, and the cartoon character coach appears in the upper right corner and encourages them to finish their food. Once they resume eating, the video continues.
Introducing Illumidine® SmartDish®
for the Internet of Tableware™
SmartDish senses food and provides multimedia feedback, such as light, sound, and video, making dining informative, educational and fun. Some of the many applications include:
- Provide calorie consumption for weight-conscious adults
- List total carbs and protein for persons with diabetes
- Help hospitals track nutritional intake by patients
- Encourage children to “eat their vegetables”
- Audio-visual edu-tainment while dining
