Portable Item Tracking System with Feedback

Bags are essential for active young adults, or urban travelers, who live in urban environments and need to carry or transport items for work, school, or recreational activities. The design team has created the experience of a smart container for the future urban traveler, moving beyond the bags that are available today. The product offers a new, smart, and connected experience that is unlike any existing product.

Upon extensive user testing and needfinding, the team identified the following significant needs: (1) a reliable way to prevent forgotten items such as a laptop charger or a notebook and (2) a way to confirm that one has everything needed for a given activity. Based on these needs, the team developed the Totto Embrace. The Embrace is a system that can track items and prevent the user from forgetting items that will be needed over the course of the day. The main features of the product are summarized below.

RFID scanning: The Embrace features an RFID scanning system at the heart of the item tracking technology. The bag features a custom loop antenna that allows the system to know when any tagged item has entered or exited the bag.

Phone app: The software application allows the user to register new RFID tags, check what items are currently in the bag, and create events on a calendar and associate items with those events. The application communicates with the Embrace using Bluetooth communication.

Feedback: The Embrace is fitted with a haptic feedback system that notifies the user when an item is forgotten. This feedback will alert the user that something is missing from the bag. The user can then consult the application to determine which item is missing.