WineM solves the problem of remembering all the information about the wines in a large wine rack, cellar or cabinet, or searching through that data. This smart wine rack makes that information always accessible and updatable.
ThingM will be at Wired’s NextFest conference, showing off a prototype of our WineM product. Come visit us if you’re in LA!
You can even read a press release about WineM.
WineM has a bank of RGB LEDs for every cell a bottle can go in. Each cell has a microcontroller implementing a high-power variant of a SmartLED.
There are 576 total LEDs in the WineM prototype, controlled by 52 microcontrollers, bussed together over an I2C bus.
Here’s a little video showing the cell lights in action.
The electronics in each cell look like (click for more details):
Standard through-hole components were used since space wasn’t an issue.
Each cell also has an RFID antenna to recognize the RFID tags on the wine bottles. This lets you recognize which wine bottle is in which cell. A controller board holds the RFID reader and controls up to 12 cells. Four controllers are linked together to in the WineM prototype to control the entire rack:
Hi, please tell the world about it. :)
We’re working on the production version of it right now. On our WineM product page you’ll find a description of it, links to hi-res photos, and a video.
Thanks!
Very nice. do you mind if i link to this from my wine forum? and do you have any other info such as brochures etc?
That looks awesome Tod! Sorry I wasn’t in town for NextFest — I’m itching for a f2f look at the rig!
I think it would be interesting to have a sensor in each cell that could determine the color of the wine in each bottle and use that color as the LED display for that specific cell. That way, you would know at a quick glance, what kind of wine was in each.