8 (Surprising) Devices That Connect to the Internet
By Distributel
Some IoT (Internet of Things) devices make a lot of intuitive sense. You can see why a doorbell camera might connect to the internet. Or a digital assistant for that matter. But what about a litter box? Or an anti-snoring device? Or even a salt shaker? They’re all real, and they’re all part of the IoT.
A Smart Snoring Stopper
When Nora, a device you stick under your pillow, detects that you’ve started to snore, it moves a bit and unblocks your airway. Neat!
A Smart Fragrance Sprayer
If a regular scent diffuser isn’t good enough for you, maybe you want one that learns your schedule, your preferred level of scent, and will give you a nice puff of scent whenever you arrive home. If so, check out Pura. Now, if only they could make it detect when stinky Uncle Stan visits.
An Agricultural Operation Monitor
The Arable Mark 2 can monitor things like rainfall, dew detection, solar radiation, temperature, pressure, plant health, and more. Basically, you install one of these into a field and get all kinds of smart data about your growing operation right away. We imagine that this is the first of what will be a lot of new devices that monitor farms and plant life.
A Smart Salt Shaker
Do you want a smart salt shaker that glows and plays music? Well, not many other people did either, which is why you can’t buy a Smalt anymore.
A Smart Water Assistant
The Phyn installs under your sink, hooks into your water system, and can detect if there’s a leak anywhere in your home. It also monitors usage by fixture, gives you detailed stats, and detects ice crystals forming in your pipes. All in all, a very boring albeit highly responsible entry in our list of surprising IoT devices.
A Smart Breathalyzer
The Ocigo is part of a new generation of breathalyzers that are cheaper, easier to use, and faster than ever before. It’s being marketed towards fleet operators who want better peace of mind that their drivers are driving influence-free. That’s the kind of safety we can get behind.
A Smart Cat Litter Box
No one likes scooping cat poop, so the LavvieBot does all the scooping and litter replacing for you. It’s automatic, it’s quiet, and it keeps you in the loop via a smartphone app. Go ahead and file this under silly, but we’d still use it.
A Smart Toilet
What does a smart toilet do? Warms your seat, changes the ambient lighting, plays music . . . and lets you talk to Alexa, in case you need your toilet to tell you about the traffic, we guess. At least that’s what the Numi 2.0’s sales page says.
Maybe, in the future, all our toilets will be smart toilets, and they’ll do more useful stuff like give you health feedback. Until then, dropping a few thousand bucks on a toilet that talks and plays music seems a bit much.