Computer Vision at the Supermarket and building your perfect body

April 30

This week we will look at a Computer Vision system that is being installed in Supermarkets to reduce unnecessary packaging, speed up checkout times and improve charging accuracy for fresh produce. I will also look at a few new products that can help improve your fitness, sleep and muscle quality. A new and improved you is not far away.

Computer Vision at the Supermarket

Tiliter is an Australian startup that has developed a system that uses computer vision at the checkout to determine exactly what fresh produce is being purchased. It is able to identify products 15 times faster than a manual process.

The system has been trained on thousands upon thousands of photos of fresh produce purchased regularly at supermarkets. The system scans the item and determine exactly what it is. It can differentiate between Truss, Roma and Gourmet tomatoes or Red Delicious, Royal Gala and Pink Lady apples.

The amount of packaging can be reduced significantly, there is no need for barcodes on fresh produce and the checkout process can be sped up. No need to scroll through long menus of produce to find the type of apple that you are buying. Those annoying little stickers (that I usually forget to remove before eating) can be dispensed with. Inadvertent or deliberate mistakes at the self checkout also become a thing of the past.

The hardware consists of a compact processor unit and a camera head with lighting. It can be easily integrated with existing supermarket checkouts. The system is currently being rolled out by one of Australia’s leading supermarkets.

Fitness Wearables

We have spoken before about tracking systems that can be used by athletes and sports teams (e.g. Catapult tracker). Strive is a new wearable that gives specific feedback on what muscles are being used, how hard they are working, fatigue, force development, load, acceleration and symmetry (i.e. are muscles balanced between front and back of the body or is one area dominating).

Strive also produces movement sensors that can track speed, distance, acceleration, jump height and stopping speed.

The software that accompanies the system gives feedback on injury prevention and recovery. For example, there are an average of 176 hamstring injuries in the NFL in the US each year. A player that suffers a hamstring injury is much more prone to reinsure the same muscle. The return-to-play protocol in Strive takes into account body composition, left v right dominance and previous injuries to determine what exercises affect specific muscle groups differently on individual players. The system provides the ability to monitor muscle activity in real time to ensure that athletes are working the correct muscle group and not compensating with other muscles. This ensures that the player returns to 100% before practicing or playing.

Sleep Monitoring

Sleep is critical to functioning well as a human being. We all need different amounts of sleep and the quality of our sleep can vary greatly. There is a growing range of products that aim to provide feedback on the amount and quality of sleep that each individual gets each night.

The Oura ring measures a wide range of factors when determining the quality of your sleep. Using infrared LED sensors, temperature sensors, an accelerometer and a gyroscope the ring can measure heart rate, heart rate variability, body temperature, steps and movement. Using a wireless charger the Oura battery will last about 7 days before needing recharging.

The ring provides information on your REM sleep (Rapid Eye Movement i.e. when you are dreaming), deep and light sleep. Algorithms provide feedback on your daily readiness after your night’s sleep and guidance on how you can improve your sleep. The ring can also provide feedback on activity and movement as daily, weekly and monthly trends.

Muscle and Fat Measurement

Skulpt is a scanner that can measure the composition of muscles and the amount of body fat at 24 different places in the body. It uses Composition Myography to scan the body.

A weak electrical current is passed between the outer electrodes on the device. This current is high frequency and alternating. As the current moves through the skin, subcutaneous fat and muscle, it loses a little bit of energy due to the resistance of the tissue. This change is measure by the inner electrodes in the device. Additionally the muscle fibers briefly store and release the electrical charge. The electrical current can also be applied at different frequencies as different tissues, muscle, fat, bone are sensitive to frequencies in different ways.

By evaluating the resistance the system is able to measure the amount of fat and muscle. Muscle Quality is measured using the preferential direction of current flow and the effects on time delay between the applied current and measured voltage. In muscles, bigger fibers have greater strength and they demonstrate greater electrical storage capacity and greater time delays. Injury can be detected through altered electrical conduction.

Between these 3 products you now have the technology to build your perfect body. No more excuses. As they say in the classics, just do it.

Paying it Forward

If you have a start-up or know of a start-up that has a product ready for market please let me know. I would be happy to have a look and feature the startup in this newsletter. Also if any startups need introductions please get in touch and I will help where I can.

If you have any questions or comments please email me via my website craigcarlyon.com or comment below. 

I would also appreciate it if you could forward this newsletter to anyone that you think might be interested.