Sensor-Based Device Mines Your Own Business

As time passes, designers are coming up with ever more devices that will track your every move. Like anything else, that could be a good, bad, and/or inconsequential thing, but either way the devices keep emerging. One of the latest of these privacy-observance products is the Smart Sense Dwell from Indyme, a designer of real-time shopper engagement and loss prevention technologies.

Smart Sense Dwell consists of a small wireless module that can be mounted at active locations in a retail outlet, i.e., clothing store, department store, supermarket, etc. Once placed, the module detects the presence of one or more persons gathering in that area.  It has the ability to ignore people passing through while triggering a discreet notification to store staff when people are spending time in a target area.

The Smart Sense Dwell module detects people gathering in a target location.

Yet another talent, the sensor outputs a local "chime", which Indyme claims has proven to deter theft. According to the company, thieves fear what they don't understand or anything that draws attention to them. However, the chime is typically unnoticed by honest shoppers, unless of course that chime happens to sound like their ringtone. It is a possibility.

Smart Sense Dwell embarks on the heels of the Smart Sense Touch module. This somewhat clever device detects shoppers handling or touching merchandise.  Allegedly, this detection method permits “matching the most appropriate tool to various merchandise situations”. It begs the question, is the customer holding up an item out of admiration and a desire to purchase (or steal) it, or to show it to a companion shopper claiming, “Would anyone actually wear this”?

This product shows some promise as a sales tool and it may be quite a breakthrough in terms of theft prevention. When you think of all those optical sensors and cameras placed nearly everywhere these days not preventing criminal activity, a simple chime may do the trick. For more details, visit http://www.indyme.com. ~MD