Author Archives: Kristina Zadakova

Makro got supersmart and superfast

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Everyone has been at least once standing in a never-ending que in supermarket, waiting to pay for stuff in your basket. In the last few years, we see a trend that many people are using self-service cash registers or scan and go systems, if they are available.

Let’s look how this scan and go works. You walk in a shop, grab a stroller together with a small scanner and you are ready to shop. Some stores also offer a mobile app which you can use instead of the scanner. Before placing any item into your basket, you easily scan it. When you are ready to leave the shop, you simply go to self-service registers which will read your scanner, pay your purchase and you can leave without waiting in line. That sound very efficient, however in reality you must often wait anyway to be randomly checked if your bill has everything that you have in your bag. From very quick and easy shopping to very inefficient waste of time.

In majority of supermarkets Makro in Czech Republic, Hungary, Turkey, and Israel offer the same scan and go, but with new supersmart innovation. Company Bizerba together with Israeli start-up Supersmart developed a system, that fastens and automatize whole shopping experience.

So, from now on, when using scan and go in Makro, you just place your stroller into special gate, which will check your scanned shopping list, check the weight of your stroller, compare individual purchased items with all similar transactions in real time and, if necessary, it can work with the purchase history of a specific customer. The last factor in the automatic visual inspection of the contents of the purchase. All this in less than 60 seconds.

And if the Supersmart gate finds out some problems, it notifies the customer and automatically recommends relevant products, which the customer may have forgotten to scan. If there will be any problem with the transaction, the service can be called, but other than that – whole shopping experience could be contactless.

This innovation is very helpful not just because it is very time efficient, but it also saves our nerves as well as our backs. No more loading, unloading, loading back and unloading to car and than again unloading to your fridge.

Sources:

https://www.czechcrunch.cz/2020/12/bez-pokladny-i-namatkove-kontroly-v-makru-nakup-pri-platbe-primo-v-kosiku-bleskove-zkontroluje-specialni-brana/

https://www.idnes.cz/ekonomika/test-a-spotrebitel/supersmart-nakupy-budoucnosti-bizerba-makro.A201202_144011_test_fih

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Never have your skis stolen again!

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Probably everyone has been at least once on the ski slope or knows someone who does. When spending whole freezing day outside, majority of people stop to buy some hot drink or even have a lunch break in order to warm up and get ready for next few hours on the slopes again. However, that means taking off the skis or snowboard, place it in the stand and get inside the restaurant or at least go order the food or drink. Leaving your sport equipment unattended like that can attract a thief, who will simply grab your skis and you won’t even notice. Of course, you will try to get your money back by calling the insurance company, but very often you will fail, because you have to have your equipment locked to get money back from your insurance.

The same scenario happened also to Marek Vala, man from Czech, who visited Austria to try his new skis. However, this unfortunate event brought up to light a genius invention – Pealock. Marek put together a team and developed a lock equipped with motion sensor which makes very loud noise when someone moves with locked stuff. The best things are simple!

In the event of a sudden movement of locked equipment, the Pealock sends the owner a message on a phone. At longer distances, it can switch to GSM mode and calls the owner. Thanks to its compact size and low weight of 130 grams, it fits into your pocket without any problems. On the other side this small device is very hard to destroy! Accelerometer installed in the lock has a shock limit set, so it will make it clear when it is hammered. The lock strip is protected against cutting by steel wires with conductors, which trigger an alarm when trying to break the lock.

The price of this device will be around 690 PLN and can be pre-ordered on Kickstarter. For its unique design and technology, it won Red Dot Award in the Design Concept category.

Advantages of Czech Pealock:

  • Motion sensor which starts loud noise
  • Automatic stop of the noise if the lock is in stable position after 5 seconds
  • Possibility to set up few initial seconds in order not to start the noise if the skis just fall down
  • Connected to your smart phone
  • Possibility to add more NFC cards or smart devices which can unlock your equipment
  • You can connect more Pealocks to one phone
  • Wide range of usage options – ski, bike, baby-carriage, scooter, etc.
  • Small size and weight
  • Not easily destroyed

Sources:

SEDLÁČEK, Vojtěch. Czechcrunch: Ukradli mu lyže, a tak se rozhodl chránit vybavení ostatních. Marek Vala navrhl chytrý zámek, který neprolomí ani kladivo [online]. 2020 [cit. 2020-12-31]. Dostupné z: https://www.czechcrunch.cz/2020/07/ukradli-mu-lyze-a-tak-se-rozhodl-chranit-vybaveni-ostatnich-marek-vala-navrhl-chytry-zamek-ktery-neprolomi-ani-kladivo/

Kickstarter: PEALOCK: The New Era of Electronic Locks [online]. 2020 [cit. 2020-12-31]. Dostupné z: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/32772741/pealock-the-new-era-of-electronic-locks

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EU encourages people to use Internet of Things as a tool for smaller energy consumption

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Internet of thing has already become a part of ordinary household in many countries. We use online assistant devices – such as Alexa, Google or Siri, we have washing machines which we can control through mobile device or we can start to cook dinner in the oven when we are on our way home. In these cases, the usage of Internet of Things is up to every individual, but in the next few years, every household should have device running online, which will help them to be more energy efficient.

European Union is trying to set some rules in order to be more energy efficient and be more eco-friendly to our planet. For that, they are counting also on Internet of things which should be used in gathering information about consumption of households in every country belonging to EU.

Directive 2018/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council is editing the directive on energy efficiency 2012/27/EU, which concentrates on more ecological actions of countries in EU. The most current topic is reducing final consumption of heat and hot water of each facility. The goal of this directive is to ensure that the owner or tenant of a property will monthly (in Czech Republic it is now only once a year or every 4 months) receive detailed billing of their consumption of electricity and hot water. As a result, the owner or tenant can adapt their consumption according to their monthly billing.

This billing should be consisted of:

  • Price and actual consumption of energies
  • Comparison with previous month consumption
  • Comparison with standardized consumer
  • Composition of energy sources

For this reason, everywhere in Czech Republic, starting from the 1.1. 2027 there must be installed only electro meters which will be possible to read (count down) remotely. People can choose from 2 variations – “walk-by” systems for which a person must come nearby to the meter, or systems on the base of Internet of Things which automatically download the data and send it every month to the administrator. “Walk-by” systems have cheaper starting investment, but in long term, they are more expensive because of not automatic count down. That will mean that nearly every property in Czech (and hopefully EU) will have, by the year 2027, installed IoT device.

Resources:

ŠVARCOVÁ, Hana. Nové předpisy ke snížení energetické náročnosti bytového družstva: Prezentace. Ministerstvo průmyslu a obchodu. 2020. Dostupné také z: https://www.dumplnyuspor.cz/bd/webinar-nove-predpisy-ke-snizeni-energeticke-narocnosti-bytovych-domu/

Praktický rádce pro SVJ: Vznikne povinnost dálkově odečítat bytová měřidla a častější vyúčtování nákladů na teplo a teplou vodu podle směrnice EU? [online]. [cit. 2020-12-31]. Dostupné z: https://www.radceprosvj.cz/nove-clanky/povinnost-dalkovych-odectu-vodomeru-indikatoru/

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