Five weird smart devices you might not know about

Every day the Internet of Things grows, with new and unique smart devices being added to the market. We’ve heard of smart watches, smart fridges and even smart coffee machines.

But there are some smart devices that many of us never saw coming — from autonomous lawnmowers to Bluetooth-enabled condoms. Here are five smart devices you never knew existed.

1. Smart Wine Bottle Sleeve

If buying expensive wine is not helping you reach the ultimate level of pretentiousness that you desire, you could always invest in a WiFi enabled wine sleeve. Kuvée, a company which specialises in advanced and sophisticated wine bottles, has also created a smart sleeve for wine bottles.

The sleeve comes with a touchscreen that gives you information about wines, suggests food pairings and gives you tips and tricks. It even recommends more wines for you to try and the ability to buy them online. However, considering that it is part of a package that costs over $100, you might want to rather just Google this information.

The sleeve comes with a bundle, either through membership plans that start from $99 monthly or every second month (12 payments of $10 are required for the sleeve), or from once-off purchases
starting at $199.

2. Smart Pot Planters

If growing plants is less of a hobby for you and more of a precise science, you might be interested in a smart plant pot or garden.

This isn’t just a product made by one company, but rather there are a variety of brands available. Smart Garden is one such planter — and it is able to keep track of water, light, oxygen, and even nutrients in the planter.

Parrot Pot is another brand of smart plant pots. This particular pot can water your plants for you, and also uses different sensors to monitor your plant. However if you search through a smart device store, you are likely to find more versions of these planters — from relatively simple ones to more scientific and precise ones.

3. Smart Lawn Mowers

The dawn of the Roomba let the world know in a big way that smart vacuums are an entertaining, but also useful tool for cleaning your house. There are now a variety of smart vacuums on the market.

What you may not know is that there are also smart lawn mowers. These unusual smart devices take the concept of an autonomous vacuum and change it to turn it into a gadget that cuts grass instead.

Whether you’re willing to trust a robot with spinning blades to go on its merry way unattended is a whole different story. But there are a surprising number of brands with their own robot lawn mowers.

These automatic mowers can be programmed via smartphone apps and left to do their thing while you relax. Some mowers even come with pin codes, meaning that someone can’t just go ahead and re-program or steal the device.

4. A Smart Condom

This is a brand new development in the smart device world – with the world’s first smart condom being announced only this year. The device is been dubbed the i.Con and was created by British
Condoms.

So what does it do? Well, it is a ring which attaches to the base of a condom and can detect the presence of STIs in the user. While this is a useful feature, it’s not the primary feature marketed to potential customers.

Rather, it is promoted as a tracker for your sexual performance – like a FitBit for your sex life. Data gathered includes calories burned, number of sessions, duration, velocity and a whole bunch of other sex-related performance.

Users can even choose to share their performance with friends, in which case, you might want to rethink your relationship with the person.

5. Smart Shoe Laces

While we’re not sure that GPS shoelaces will change the world, the creators of pLaces hope that their product will make everyday life safer.

While they double as activity trackers, one of the major marketing angles of the product is its ability to track users. This is especially relevant for parents who want to keep tabs on young children, as the GPS laces can even be programmed to set off an alert when the user leaves a certain zone.

“They offer untold use cases, ranging from the localisation of your loved ones (children, grandfathers, grandmothers and friends…), through to your hiking and sports activities,” the creators say of the laces.

It could be a great tool used to make sure children are safe, but there are privacy concerns for those using the device for less noble means.

Featured image: Britishcondoms.co.uk