Handheld device can scan food and clothes

A new concept device has potential as a laundry assistant and nutrition aid.

A new product development is hoping to make us smarter by scanning clothes and food as well as connecting to home appliances to activate specific functions. Bosch‘s X-Spect has the appearance of a standard TV remote, but with a small screen and capacitive touch buttons, but the technology behind it is very much state of the art. The X-Spect detects the composition of fabrics, and can not only recognize stains on clothing but also tell you what the food is composed of.

With everything connected via Wi-Fi, the X-Spect will work out the material of the item of clothing it’s scanning and also the general condition of it. The device will then automatically send that information to the washing machine, which will select the correct temperature and spin cycle to clean it correctly.

The potential use of this technology in the Internet of Things (IoT) extend much further though, and these are avenues that Bosch are also exploring. One idea is that the X-Spect could be used to scan food such as fruit and vegetables, for example, to distinguish how fresh they are. Then there’s nothing to stop stop Bosch building the technology into a refrigerator and allowing it to scan its contents to determine how fresh it is. Or adding it to an oven to scan your food and automatically cook it to perfection. Although just a concept device at the moment, Bosch are planning to release it, in their words, ‘sometime soon’.

Can you think of any other ways that technology can be used to improve our clothing? A company in Hong Kong has developed heating pads that can be integrated into garments, and in the UK, a team have created a range of T-shirts that change color depending on the acidity of the water around them.