The Smart Wardrobe HE / SHE

Smart wardrobe is one of its kind implemented with components generally used in automation to enhance functionality of wardrobe. Although similar systems exist for some inventories resembling wardrobe, various features included in this project are original and aren’t present in other systems. These features when comes together results in great user experience when it comes to wardrobes which is never seen before. This project is comprised of either freely available software and IDEs for development of required firmware and apps. Hardware installed is widely available and mostly available at a very cheap price.

Apart from our project a different design of a smart wardrobe is designed by www.absolutnine.com.

Have a look to their design also.

Current status of project

Project has advanced from beta phase and is completely functional but is still in preliminary stage. Algorithms working behind scenes are still in infancy stage and have scope for improvement. Also there are many hardware and software optimisations which needs to be done in terms of energy requirement.

Remaining areas of concern

Automatic cloth detection

Using UHF RFID reader instead of LF RFID reader to completely remove the task of user scanning each item manually one by one. This will prevent many fail cases to occur in smart wardrobe which can occur due to causes like scanning multiple items at once.

Enhanced wardrobe Security

Applying modern security mechanisms like fingerprints or passwords based locks thus making whole wardrobe theft proof.

Advanced Data Mining and more useful suggestions

Applying more intelligent predictive analysis techniques and algorithms which are being continuously developed for much better suggestions for varying scenarios.  

Managing multiple wardrobes

Multiple wardrobes can be managed or accessed with single devices or multiple devices if authorized.

Pest control

Detecting pests and getting rid of them without harming clothes.

Cost reduction and reducing energy requirements.

Instead of providing power for different sensor separately we would supply power for all at once.

Dirt spots

Detecting unhygienic clothes, identifying the dirt spots and notifying user about them.

Image coustesy: www.dreamstime.com

Ideology

The ideology behind the project just is to make human life more comfortable, easy and relaxed.

• Can fit perfectly in every house and in daily life of people
• Automatically manage and perform tasks
• Providing free time for rest of their chores
• Liberty from repetitive wardrobe management activities
• Relieving mental stress
• Affordable
• Low power consuming
• Can be controlled remotely via mobile application

Future Prospects

• As the project being in underdevelopment stage update's will be made in the future.
• Some new technology which will be added are:-
• Pest control
• Scanning the whole stack of clothes with UHF RFID reader.
• Keep track of clothes that is worn and tells which is ready for laundry.
• Preventing the wardrobe from pests and controlling them.
• Automatically tells that which cloth is smelling sweaty or having a odour in the wardrobe.
• Providing security to the wardrobe.
• Make our system more power efficient.
• Managing multiple wardrobes in the house with the single device for multiple users. 

Image courtesy: www.archiexpo.com

PROBLEM ANALYSIS

PRODUCT DEFINITION

Product Name: Smart wardrobe

Product Objective: To provide fast and efficient access to wardrobe with minimum involvement of the user in the searching process, also to inform him about the expiry products.

Languages used:  Front end: Java, C, C++.

FEASIBILITY ANALYSIS

We perform feasibility study to analyse whether the proposed project is feasible or not. We check whether developing the project is beneficial for both the parties i.e., the developer and the client. Under Feasibility study, we have performed the following:

TECHNICAL FEASIBILITY

The application is to be developed using C, C++,these languages have been chosen by us because they are easily implemented and they are advanced programming.

Languages and they have been well developed and tested. The reason for selecting and using these languages are as follows: These are a lot easy to use.

OPERATIONAL FEASIBILITY

Wardrobe is a low energy consumption product as it mainly works on battery; it uses a Arduino as a micro controller motherboard, as it controls all the sensor in the wardrobe.

The software which is made in order to work with the wardrobeis efficient in terms of operation and usage, as it works with Bluetooth so no datausage is required and saves a lots of money.

ECONOMIC FEASIBILITY

The cost and the benefits for the development of this project are as follows: 

Costs:

Cost of development tools:

For software-as we used android so it was easily found in internet and downloaded so it didn’t require any money, also the C, C++ language used in Arduino was easily available as its library are mostly

Opensourced, so the software was made easily

For wardrobe - the material required for making the wardrobe(wooden ply, paint etc.), the sensors, the wires used, cost a little bit of money, which were manageable.

Related Projects

Magic Wardrobe:

Situated shopping from your own wardrobe. The main objective of the project was to design a system that would make it possible for users to have information about their wardrobe wherever also the best thing about this project is you will even get the information about the stores from which you had buy this item. Due to that functionality when you go for shopping purpose it will help you not to take those item which are already there in the wardrobe also matching with the other item is possible

e.g. finding shirts that matched a selected trouser.

What am I gonna Wear: Scenario-oriented recommendation

This is based on the user's choice and match making i.e,the system return suggestion for user outfit  which may consist of any occasion and then it record the suggestion or what the user wears so it would be able to give the same suggestion later in the future ,might be for the same occasion and it would provide you with suggestion 9 times example suppose you selected a set clothes for the swimming, now the wardrobe will record the data and will provide you suggestion next time you choose the occasion swimming.

Closet Buddy:

Dressing the visually impaired. The objective of the project was to design a system which would help the handicapped people to choose a appropriate outfit.They were also able to change the status of outfits as dirty, clean or damaged and even register some as no longer fitting. So because of it the user may even get suggestion about the fashion sense and suggestion from fashion expert or fashion rule. The closet buddy and the smart Wardrobe in the smart home project have functions that enable the user to set particular clothes as dirty. But, this setting is done manually.

User Interface

For the connectivity and data transferring Internet is used as the tool but the user can also connect and control the mobile application via bluetooth when in the range, thus saving the internet data or helpful when there is any reception problem of internet.

Bluetooth is used as the embedded feature for the mobile application.

• When the user is not using internet and starts with application, user gets an Alert box to open the bluetooth in case it also off.
• Also it is important from the point of view of the project because every data either the sensors data or the id generated from RFID is transferred through it.
• If the bluetooth is not turned on then list of bluetooth devices are shown from which you can choose the desired device.

Some of the functionalities are:

Sensors

The first activity of the application shows the sensors reading like temperature, humidity, heat  reading also it shows the gaseous content of CO2, NH3 inside the wardrobe.

Function to add, list, delete

In the application the product are added

As clothes and accessories option are given user can add both

In both of the options picture can be taken by camera or chosen by the gallery of the respective product.

Clothes

In clothes activity  the user  is  given an options to choose from clothes type while adding, also occasion for the clothes can be chosen while adding as will help the user in the future to choose clothes just by searching the occasion type in the application

Accessories

It will give the user flexibility to add any product, and major advantage is user can add expiry date also which will later help the user by giving him/her a notification earlier before the product is gets expired.

Suggestions by weather

Live suggestions are provided to the user for what should be used according to the weather outside. Like suppose it is going to rain in few hours then in the suggestion page, clothes good in the rainy weather will be suggested.

Image courtesy: onthefourthfloor.com

How smart wardrobe is better than typical wardrobe ?

We live in an era where people struggle to get some time for them. Hence smart wardrobe is a becoming necessity at the moment. Motive of smart wardrobe is to perform various wardrobe related  tasks and action automatically and also manage it while generating a useful data, records and logs. These makes manageability of wardrobe considerably easier and paves a way for lot more possibilities which may some smarter applications of smart wardrobe in near future. Users now have to interact lesser with wardrobe, but are much more connected  to it than ever before now. The result is time saving and increase in functionality of wardrobe.

Functions Performed:

• Keep track on the clothes whether they are inside the wardrobe or being used outside or gone missing.
• Maintains the humidity and temperature level inside the wardrobe.
• Prevents from unhygienic conditions inside the wardrobe.
• Prevents clothes from getting damaged and several fungal and bacterial infections.
• Alerts whenever senses any movement inside wardrobe when it is closed.
• Detects the odour from the clothes and alerts to transfer them to laundry section.
• Keeps a check on the expiration of the various accessories and warns prior to the expiry date.
• A separate laundry section is made that keeps a count on the clothes to be washed and notifies for washing.

Problems faced in typical wardrobes

Clothing manageability and tracking

People usually never have any idea that what variation of clothing they have in their wardrobe. Due to the busy schedule now a day’s clothes are never managed and there is no track of the clothes. So many times clothes go missing. Further improper managing many times leads people to buy similar kind of clothes again, hence wastage of money.

Damp patches

Sometimes due to the damp patches on the walls of wardrobe humidity increases inside. Due to which clothing is severely damaged and mainly the leather products are heavily affected (white coloured patches appears). An unhygienic condition is created inside the wardrobe and people may get affected to skin diseases and fungal infections.

Rodent invasion

These commonly found rodents’ troubles people a lot in household. Many times they sneak inside the wardrobe and bite the clothes resulting in heavy economical loss to our pockets and losing up our matched collections. They also move around in the wardrobe spreading bacteria, which can cause several bacterial infections.

Unused clothes

Many times people get some clothes but they never wear it (or just for 2-3 times). Stack of other clothes are made on it and that piece of cloth is forgotten and remains unused.

Laundry Management

Clothes must be washed regularly but with this busy schedule it becomes very difficult for people to do it on daily basis. So clothes are piled in the laundry basket to washed at some interval but these intervals are very irregular and those sweaty and dirty clothes starts to  smell.

Accessories expiration

Several kind of accessories are found inside the wardrobe but there are some that comes that comes with a expiry date like deodorant’s and other cosmetic items. So within vast variety of accessories some may remain unused and they expire. As these items are costly so money is simply wasted.

Wardrobe odor

There are various factors resulting in wardrobe odor like stuffiness, lack of air circulation, damp clothes, used clothes etc. There are other unexpected possibilities such as pests, insects, rodents and damp patches on walls.

A smart start

Time is of utmost importance to everybody. People work for 16 hours in a 24 hour day. With  schedule this hectic, people barely have time for little things, like laundry piling up in their closet, keeping tracks of whereabouts of their clothes. Finding things can be little frustrating, and keeping track of your wardrobe's condition is a whole another beast. Wardrobe's  common enemies such as rodents, humidity, hygiene and some other conditions needs constant checking. Wardrobe isn’t some typical inventory. It is a bit more special since many of items present in wardrobe are handpicked by you and defines you, reflects you and in many ways are dear or important to you. You spend a lot of time personalizing it whether you know it or not. Almost every operation concerning wardrobe requires you to interact with it, even checking its contents. We live in an era where people struggle to get some time for them. So what if we took most of this burden away from them. What if there was an intelligent system that took care of most of things about wardrobe. Imagine that if your wardrobe needs some attention from you, it will tell you that. A wardrobe that keeps track of the things you use, warns you about products about to expire. That’s where our project "Smart Wardrobe” comes in. Now not only your wardrobe can take care of many important tasks, now you can also do much more with your wardrobe which you never thought were possible or were to time consuming to do, thus making your life easier.