Smart Ice Cubes Tell When You've Had Enough Alcohol 167
dstates writes "In just 6 weeks an MIT researcher created smart ice cubes that monitor your drinking. After an alcohol induced blackout motivated a bit of introspection (video), Dhairya Dand pulled together a coin cell battery, an ATtiny microcontroller, and an IR transceiver molded into gelatin to create self-aware glowing ice-cubes. The cubes glow and beat to the ambient music, but more importantly, they know how fast and how much you are drinking, and they change color from green to orange to finally red as you reach your safe limit. If things go too far, the ice cubes can connect to your smartphone and send a text message for a friend come get you. Of course, you have to remember not to swallow them."
Nerd creates solution in search of a problem... (Score:4, Insightful)
and no marketability.
"Ice Cubes that connect to your smartphone." This is not the brave new future that I want.
Honestly, this should be an early contender for the 2013 ig-Nobels (though I'm guessing / hoping this is just an overhyped undergraduate project). What's particularly bad is that the basic idea is flawed - it uses readings from accelerometers as a proxy for how many sips are being taken per unit time and then this as a proxy for rate and appropriateness of alcohol consumption. While I fully will admit that there is certainly a market for some device, perhaps built into a glass, that would allow a commercial bartender somehow detect whether a patron has had too many (though even that would have lots of legal and practical vulnerabilities), this isn't it and isn't even close.
Still, kudos for the inventor for trying compared to playing xbox or going out and having a social life or something.
I don't need ice cubes! (Score:5, Insightful)
As Dean Martin once explained, you're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without hanging on for dear life. That seems like a good test to me.
Not going to work (Score:5, Insightful)
People already have lots of warnings that they have too much to drink. First, if you drink six drinks in one bar, you probably had too much. If you are slurring your words, you probably had to much. If your friends say you had too much, you probably had too much. These smart ice-cubes will not help because it is a problem of impaired judgement, not a problem of impaired measuring ability. After a few drinks I bet most people will just put the cubes in their pocket and ignore them.
Or, you could not drink yourself into Oblivion (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, is it that hard to drink and have a good time without pouring crap down your neck till you're shitfaced, grand slam the bed and wake up next to something that needs to be kept wet until it can be rolled back into the ocean?
Spend hours building a smart ice cube, or thinking, "Hmm the room is spinning, I feel a bit grim and that -2 over there is looking like a 10, I'll ease up a bit". Which is the 'Smart' idea?
As a drinker... (Score:2, Insightful)
Your solving the wrong problem (Score:5, Insightful)
What this summary misses is that the blackout sent the dude to the hospital, and not even 3 weeks later he is drinking it up at a party again. Thats a problem blinky ice cubes wont solve
http://hackaday.com/2013/01/09/led-ice-cubes-prevent-alcohol-induced-blackouts/ [hackaday.com]
Smart ice cubes? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What happens ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe they should have designed these features into the cup rather than something that drops in the alcohol. THe cup can probably do more sensory related stuff.
Re:Nerd creates solution in search of a problem... (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, what has accelerometer data to do with quantity of alcohol? I've happened to dance with my glass, does that count as "drinking fast"? It's stupid, no matter how you look at it.
Accelerometers and IR transceivers. It has to do with the number of sips.
And if you go "dancing with your glass"; you've definitely had too many.
These are valid ways to count the number of sips. Now, as for how the number and rate/frequency of sips relates to the rate of alcohol consumption; it should be approximately proportional to thus.
Assuming the unit is programmed with the appropriate estimates for average sip size, and strength of the drink.
If the guy switches from Beer to shots of everclear in one night, without the unit measuring alcohol concentration or being reprogrammed, the unit would become useless, due to how dramatic the difference.
If it were just accelerometer, the functionality could be put in a wristwatch, without risk of ingesting the electronics.
Re:Nerd creates solution in search of a problem... (Score:5, Insightful)
How about you say, the cubes are not for every conceivable situation. But only for drinking beer out of a mug; fairly consistent levels of alcohol between beers. No straws.
Who the hell drinks beer from a mug out of a straw?
Who the hell drinks beer with ice cubes?