CLOUD-BASED ARCHITECTURE OF A SMART EXPIRY SYSTEM WITH IOT DEVICE

Abstract

Wasting of food is a major problem worldwide. One of the reasons for this food waste is that the customer
forgets the expiry date of the food after purchase and do not consume the food before it expires. When the customer finds
out that the food is expired, it is tossed out. Moreover, consuming expired foods may cause serious health issues. In this
project, a novel cloud-based smart expiry system is developed which sends an automatic notification to customer’s
smartphone and on an Internet of Things (IoT) display device (that can be attached to a refrigerator) several days before
the food expires. In the proposed method, the customer gives a customized smart-expiry magnetic card to the checkout
operator for swiping. The checkout operator app generates a table containing product names with expiry dates and it is
uploaded to the cloud. The customer’s smartphone app then automatically downloads the table from the cloud and the
customer is all set to receive the expiry date notifications. Alternatively, in case the customer forgets or does not have the
smart-expiry card with him/her in the store, a Quick Response (QR) code is printed on the receipt. The customer just
scans the single QR code with his/her smartphone and the table is downloaded from the cloud to the phone. Compared
with other works, the proposed method does not need tedious manual entry of each product name and expiration date
into the smartphone app, rather providing a smart-expiry card to the checkout operator or scanning a single QR code is
sufficient. A prototype of the proposed system has been developed and tested.