Smart cart follows you around in a shopping mall

Smarter Cart can detect what items are placed in it, match those to a shopping list and even follow shoppers around.

Tired of pushing around a shopping cart in a huge mall? Here’s a solution for you. Recently, grocery store chain, Whole Foods, gave a demonstration of Chaotic Moon’s latest device, which uses the same technology in a self-propelled shopping cart. The “Smarter Cart,” as it’s been aptly named, can actually detect what items are placed in it, match those to a shopping list, and even follow shoppers around the store on its own.

Like Chaotic Moon’s Board of Awesomeness project, the Smarter Cart uses a Kinect sensor synced with a Windows 8 tablet to control its motion, but with one key difference. Instead of having someone actively directing where the device moves, the cart monitors the user and follows them like a lost puppy as they move about the store and pick out their items.

The Kinect’s voice recognition is also implemented this time around, so a user can ask the cart for more information — like where specific items are located in the store — or tell it when they are done shopping.

The cart can also track the items placed in it by scanning their bar codes, match them to a pre-made shopping list, and give the total cost of all the items in the basket. It can even detect if the wrong type of item is grabbed and verbally inform the shopper.

With some voice commands, the cart could then tell the rep in what aisle and section the gluten-free spaghetti was located. A shopper could also link the cart to a billing account to pay for everything instantly, and then bag up their groceries and walk right out of the store.

The project is still quite early in development, but Whole Foods has already tested single carts in some stores. The company plans to begin testing multiple carts at one store in Texas, US, starting next month.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 10^th, 2012.