Automating your shopping list creation with hiku (Kickstarter)

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CT Droid

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Here is a product which might be interesting to some of you. hiku is a small Wi-Fi enabled barcode reader supporting voice recognition, which is designed to be user & kitchen friendly. It also supports integration with popular services such as Astrid, offers an open API (imagine integrating this with your favorite home automation platform), and will NOT charge a subscription fee. Some of the key features:

  • 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi
  • 1D linear imaging scan engine
  • Microphone
  • Rechargeable lithium-ion battery
  • Ultra-low power standby mode
  • USB port for charging
Personally, I was planning on building something like this with the old CueCat scanners (still have a box of them somewhere), but you can't beat the beauty, openess and out-of-the-box experience of this device.

The device will run $99 once it launches, but the early adopter pledge lets you get it for $79.



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This may be my very first Kickstarter pledge! I've often thought about how to make something super-easy like this using the camera or barcode reader on an kitchen PC, but this is even simpler/faster.
 
This is my second Kickstarter pledge, the Pebble was my first. I too have a CueCat in the basement somewhere as I wanted to do something similar. I wanted to do more of a kitchen inventory management system, which is a little more ambitious than this but hopefully some enterprising people will extend the Hiku with such functionality. Thanks for posting about the Hiku.

David
 
What's to stop an android app from doing the exact same thing and for free? A smart phone already has internet and can scan barcodes just fine with its camera. Why would you want to worry about keeping yet another device charged?

I hope it doesn't, but my guess is this idea flops as very few are going to pay $79 for something they can do for free with their phone (assuming someone writes the code to do it).
 
From their own web-site - and I personally agree:
Q: Why did you make a separate device? Can’t I scan and voice record with my mobile phone?
A: From the earliest days of hiku, we set out to make a product that was instant so it would satisfy the demands of a busy family. One that’s as fast, if not faster, than pen and paper. You simply can not do that with a mobile app alone.
For example, hiku’s 1D linear scanner is a dedicated piece of hardware that scans over 50 times per second, making scans instantaneous and ultra accurate. With a mobile app alone, every time you want to scan an item you have to find your phone, unlock it, find your app, launch it, tap add, choose scan, wait for the camera to load, focus on the barcode, and then wait for the results. With hiku you press one button and you're done.
Click to expand...
Quite simply, usability dictates whether or not it'll get used. Yeah, you can read a barcode with your phone - but there's nothing faster than grabbing a dedicated device, pressing a button as swipe past the sour cream, and dropping it back on the fridge. Of course it's doable with just an app - and someone who doesn't want to pay $100 might do that - but for a busy household, I can certainly see the appeal. Just yesterday my wife and I and our 3 kids were at the grocery store and trying to remember that one thing we needed to grab - and I thought of this device.

To be honest though, I do think that the price point needs to drop to around $30-$40 to have a chance at mainstream - but I don't mind paying a little more to be an early adopter and give it a chance of making it.
 
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