A Blue Tooth Hydration Smart Bottle Using Sensor Fusion Algorithms With Smart Phones To Tell You When To Drink Water

if you read here last week then you may have seen the Dry Powder Inhaler. Cambridge consultants creates products for pharma as far as drug delivery system and other innovative items.

Cambridge Consultants and Sun Pharma Develop a High Performance Dry Powder Drug Inhaler for Use Beginning in 2011

This one still gets me, the blue tooth inhaler and the government with their GPS inhaler and this one should get together. If you have not seen this video check it out at the link below.

The Minder Wireless Device Connects to Collect Patient Medical Data and Transmit Via Wireless Network to Medical Record Systems Via HL7 Standards

Ok so with the new bottle, it has sensor fusion’ algorithms, that talk to a smart phone and the accelerometer on your phone and gyroscope send your statistical information to the bottle. If you need water, the bottle lights up to tell you so, so this way one won’t get dehydrated. If you want to see the bottle in action, then stop by the CES booth this year in Las Vegas. I don’t know if this one is going to make it or not in real play but the device demonstrates using device with a smart phone and the fact that sensing that was once only done at the desktop PC level is now available for mobile use as well. BD

Press Release:

Cambridge, UK and Cambridge, MA – December 7, 2010 – Cambridge Consultants, a leading technology product design and development firm, today announced the development of the i-dration drinks bottle. The i-dration is a device that works, in synchronization with a smartphone, to help sportspeople maintain optimum levels of hydration for improved performance. The company has developed the concept to demonstrate the full potential of mobile applications and how they can be brought to life through dedicated devices, or ‘hardware apps’.

In physically demanding scenarios, levels of hydration can have a significant impact on performance, and the i-dration hardware app encourages athletes to drink when they need to, rather than only when they feel thirsty. Drinking too much water can have an equally negative effect on sports performance as drinking too little, so Cambridge Consultants designed the i-dration to ensure that users maintain a proper balance of hydration for optimum performance.

The device works by giving advice based on real-time data gathered by the bottle, which is transmitted wirelessly to a smartphone application. Intelligent sensors in the i-dration bottle can be used to monitor the external temperature, drinking frequency and quantity, and this data is then sent via Bluetooth to its user’s smartphone. The phone’s inbuilt accelerometer and gyroscope can measure exercise levels, and by ‘fusing’ the data from a heart rate chest-band and information pre-entered using the smartphone interface (such as height, age and weight), the application can perform an assessment of a user’s hydration levels. The i-dration bottle then responds accordingly by flashing a blue light if the athlete needs to drink more.

i-dration demonstrates the work that Cambridge Consultants is currently undertaking in bringing mobile applications to life. “Most people still perceive an ‘app’ to be something that performs a certain task, whether it’s checking the weather or the latest sports results, in a virtual world. However, we believe that in the next 12 to 18 months we will see a plethora of new dedicated ‘hardware apps’, such as the i-dration drinks bottle, that will work in tandem with a smartphone to enhance a range of consumer products and services ,” said Rachel Harker, Business Development Manager at Cambridge Consultants. “While smartphones have some excellent capabilities, it is not always practical to use the device itself for collecting or displaying data. Inexpensive, wireless hardware apps have the potential to increase the versatility of smartphones. In the case of the i-dration bottle, it’s also relevant to the increasing number of consumers who view their smartphones and technology products as integral to maintaining their health and wellness.”

Such ‘sensor fusion’ algorithms, where the data from multiple sensors are fused together, are typically found in large distributed software systems, but can now be applied to smartphones with Internet connections working with dedicated hardware apps. Cambridge Consultants has the technology and the expertise to develop hardware apps for a vast range of functions, including the signal processing required for real time processing of the algorithms, at a low enough cost-point to make them commercially viable. Using this innovative approach, ‘hardware apps’ can be developed for multiple markets, including the medical and security sectors.

Cambridge Consultants will demonstrate its i-dration drinks bottle and application at the 2011 International CES, Jan 6^th-9^th at the LVCC in Las Vegas, USA.

Cambridge Consultants develops breakthrough products, creates and licenses intellectual property, and provides business consultancy in technology critical issues for clients worldwide. For 50 years, the company has been helping its clients turn business opportunities into commercial successes, whether they are launching first-to-market products, entering new markets or expanding existing markets through the introduction of new technologies. With a team of over 300 engineers, designers, scientists and consultants, in offices in Cambridge (UK) and Boston (USA), Cambridge Consultants offers solutions across a diverse range of industries including medical technology, industrial and consumer products, transport, energy, cleantech and wireless communications.