Crowdsourcing invention incubator Quirky, partnering up with GE Garages, sets out to solve the age-old dilemma of sour milk. Last month, they asked the Quirky community to take a regular product most people use daily and suggest a way to improve it. Stephanie Burns of San Diego won, with her suggestion for a smart milk jug, capable of telling the user when the milk inside has gone bad.
After a brainstorming session at last month’s Maker Faire and some time spent back at the office, developing the product’s physical shape and color, the MilkMaid was born.
The device works by pouring milk into a glass jug with integrated temperature sensor, which sits on an electronic base. The base contains a scale, PH sensor, wireless transmitter, rechargeable battery and a row of LED indicators. As milk in the jug sours (detected by the PH sensor), the LEDs change from green to yellow. A custom iPhone app is also capable of receiving data from the MilkMaid, alerting users if the milk gets too warm or runs low.
Quirky has to figure out pricing and work out details of mass production, so you can’t run out and buy a MilkMaid just yet. I see advantages to high tech milk, including the ability to safely keep milk that’s beyond the expiration date on its container (until it really starts to go bad). But I never had difficulty noticing if the gallon milk jug in the fridge was almost empty. If I accidentally left one out to get warm, I probably wouldn’t make a special trip back home just to save it from spoiling. I suspect the MilkMaid will only be a commercial success if it can be produced inexpensively enough to make it an impulse buy. Otherwise, I fear we’ll see it on late night television, with an announcer in the background telling us to “Act now, and we’ll throw in this three piece set of designer milk glasses!”, complete with outrageous shipping and handling charges.
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