What gets measured gets managed. While many Swedes love their snus, many wish to cut back. By connecting a snus container using sensors, we wanted to create an easy way of measuring the snus consumption. It proved to be more difficult than we thought.
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During our yearly hackathon, the Prototyp Week, our developers Hilda, Johannes and Viktor decided to explore the possibility of measuring and visualizing snus consumption in an easy and playful way. The project gave them the opportunity to experiment with sensors, while connecting a physical product to a software interface.
After the team had decided to embark on their idea, they discussed what actions would be needed to achieve the desired outcome. How would each snus pouch we registered, where and how would the data be stored, and how should it be presented?
With these questions looming, they could dig deeper into issues on connecting the sensor button to the Arduino platform via Bluetooth, and further to the Flutter app. The software and user interface work could be initiated simultaneously, with data collection and visualization.
The trickiest part was to find the right sensor for the task. The first idea was to use one sensor to register when the lid was open, and another one to register if a snus had been retrieved. Tests were conducted using both magnetic and pressure sensors, but the size constraints made it difficult make them work properly – they tended to differ in their data outcome. Eventually, the team decided to focus on the magnetic sensor.
The most important takeaway was to understand how a seemingly simple problem can entail a multitude of iterations and creative solutions. Working in the intersection of physical product, sensors and user interface proved rewarding and ignited new ideas.
The team sees two potential areas for future development after the hackathon. There are interesting opportunities in developing the data handling to create applications with goal setting and gamification to encourage a reduced snus consumption. There is further potential in playing around with different kinds of sensors for the container.
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