Inspiration
Precise calorie counting can help people reach and maintain their fitness or weight goals. However, if you wanted to track your calories today, the process would include:
1) Identifying the food.
2) Weighing the food.
3) Finding specific nutrition information for that specific food.
4) Calculating the calories based on (2) and (3).
5) Recording your progress on an app.
This long process can be tedious, time-consuming, and as a result, discouraging. People may become demotivated from pursuing their health goals.
We wanted to solve this problem to make it easier for people to track their calorie intake, so that they can stay motivated to achieve their goals. So, we turned 5 steps into 1.
What it does
Kalogram is a smart food-scale accompanied by a cross-platform application that instantly counts a user’s caloric intake by taking pictures of the food item and identifies it with AI. The Kalogram Smart Scale instantly calculates the calorie count of a food serving by integrating a scale with a camera that identifies the specific food. The name of the food, calorie count, and the measured weight are shown on the built-in e-ink display. Through a connection to our FireStore database, the Kalogram scale records each meal. This database can be accessed through a smart companion app, which also allows users to keep track of meals, follow recipes, and create posts and share pictures of their meals with close friends. The social media feature allows users to have fun and connect with a community, and also prevents the formation of eating disorders by prompting users to have 3 full meals a day.
How we built it
Raspberry Pi 4 Model B 5kg Strain Gauge Load Cell Raspberry Pi Camera Rev 1.3 Adafruit NAU7802 24-bit ADC Adafruit 2.13" Monochrome e-Ink 3D printing PLA Google API , Firebase Firestore Flutter, CalorieMama API
Challenges we ran into
Building Kalogram was a rollercoaster of ups and downs and downs and downs and downs.... but we made it through! We initially started with an ESP-32 microcontroller as we thought it was more than enough to power the smart scale as we only need it to access some API endpoints: all the computing is done through our cloud. However, the Serial camera was the biggest issue we faced as it cannot capture an image fast and clear enough for recognition. We had to pivot and switch to the overpowered, bulky and expensive RaspberryPi 4.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We're really proud that the Kalogram smart scale is a working prototype that looks great also! Not only did we ditch the breadboard and prototyping materials, we also created custom circuits using perf boards, 3D printed casing etc. This enable our prototype to look and work very similarly to our future product concept as opposed to a proof of concept.
What we learned
The Kalogram team learnt so much during the duration of the project: aside from the new technologies and startup strategies, the team was able to step into a zone where everyones contributions, opinions and efforts are recognized. We learnt how to communicate effectively, be responsible and take initiate on tasks that might be outside of our comfort zone. At times, many simultaneous threads of development happening in parallel, but despite that, the team was able to achieve spectacular results all thanks to the gradual learning of how our team works together best.
What's next for Kalogram
The market for nutrition smartphone apps is growing, especially since the COVID outbreak. Nutrition apps have grown 22% in number of users from 2021 to 2022, and the number of users is predicted to grow by 29% in the next 5 years, according to Statista. Kalogram is priced at $59.98. After scaling production, we expect cost per unit to drop from about $55 to about $54, which would improve Kalogram’s profitability. Our survey results reflected that our main market segment was very enthusiastic and likely to buy the Kalogram scale.
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