Your diet, easily tracked
Why Uscale?
Make starting and maintaining a healthy diet easier.
Keeping a healthy diet can be challenging at times. Tracking your food and finding your healthy, yet tasty, recipes that also suit your other preferences can turn into a fulltime job. To help you maintain your healthy diet in an easy and attractive way, we have designed Uscale.
Features
Find out the details of the scale
Hover over the circles on the scale to get to know more about the different parts of the scale.
Scanner & camera
The scanner and camera are located underneath the interface. These enable the scale to recognize the products that are being weighed.
Underneath the interface, the camera and scanner are located. These enable the scale to scan barcodes of products and recognize common food items while they are being weighted
Foldability
The scale is foldable. It can be used flat, but has to be opened when the scanner is needed. After use the scale can easily be folded back and stored.
Underneath the interface, the camera and scanner are located. These enable the scale to scan barcodes of products and recognize common food items while they are being weighted
Rotating screen
The screen can be rotated and adjusted to the likings of the user in both the closed and opened position.
Underneath the interface, the camera and scanner are located. These enable the scale to scan barcodes of products and recognize common food items while they are being weighted
LCD Screen
The interface allows you to easily navigate the menus which allow you to do several things such as viewing the items scanned and accessing your existing plates, but also trivial things like altering the settings for the units or taring.
Underneath the interface, the camera and scanner are located. These enable the scale to scan barcodes of products and recognize common food items while they are being weighted
Connect with the App
Track your progress. Keep an eye on your stock. Search recipes. All in one app.
The application is the center hub of the system. In the app the scanned items are virtually stored. Through the application the user can navigate between different sections, of which the most important ones are highlighted here.
Click on one of the screens in the gallery for more details.
Subscriptions
How our business model will work.
In order for our customers to know what they can expect from us and vice versa, subscriptions were set up. These ensure that all involved stakeholders can trust upon the agreements that were made. Click on the button below to get a more in depth view on the marketing plan.
Precisely track nutrient intake
Scan foods before and after cooking
For people that are focussing on
weight loss or weight gain.
€20,- per month
Includes:
Uscale (+ delivery)
Personal account in the app
Weight Journey +
€27,- per month
Also includes:
Recipe recommendations
Grocery suggestions
Rough expiry date check
Weight Journey Subscription
Precisely track nutrient intake
Scan foods before and after cooking
For people that are focussing on
weight loss or weight gain.
€20,- per month
Includes:
Uscale (+ delivery)
Personal account in the app
Lifestyle Subscription
Roughly estimate nutrient intake
Scan food after doing groceries and after cooking
For people that are focussing on
healthy, fun recipes and want to reduce food waste.
€25,- per month
Includes:
Uscale (+ delivery)
Personal account in the app
Recipe recommendations
Grocery suggestions
Rough expire date check
Sustainable Use
Product Life Cycle
Environmental problems are a commonly known, worldwide problem. At Uscale we try our best to design our products and processen in such a way that minimizes our ecological footprint. How we try to do this can be read in the following paragraphs.
Our product is designed to be reused. Therefore, we would like to see every user return their scale after they end their subscription with us. In order to motivate the user to do this we have created the following business model: The user leases the scale. The lease price of the scale is included in the monthly subscription fee. If the user decides to end their subscription they will have 30 days to return the scale. We would like to arrange that the user can return their scales at the supermarkets we intend to collaborate with. In this way we can send the scales back in bulk instead of one at a time. If the user doesn’t send back the scale within this time frame they have agreed to pay off the leased scale, which will cost them 50 euros. If they still want to return the scale afterwards, we will pay them 30 euros for their scale. All shipping costs will be covered by our company to also increase the ease of returning the scale.
Re-use
We made our packaging out of mostly cardboard. Only the handle is made out of another material, PET plastic. We intend to let the user return the scale after they end their subscription with us. We want them to return the scale using the same box, therefore we have included the text “Do not discard of packaging” on the box. This will also be explained in the manual and in the app, where the user will also find instructions on how to return the scale.
Logistics
The food recognizing technology we use is one that is rapidly evolving. This might require our product to periodically replace the camera for a better one. Therefore, we want to reuse old phone cameras in our product. We choose phone cameras, mainly because we are fairly certain its technology will follow this rapid evolution. In this way we can upgrade our camara’s without contributing to the waist problem.
Upgrades
We have chosen to make our product out of recycled stainless steel. Of course the recycling of this material will create a lot of CO2 emission. But as we plan to let the scale be used by multiple users, we prioritized the durability of the product. Another advantage of stainless steel is that it can be painted with two-part epoxy which will provide our products with a durable coating and an attractive sheen. Epoxy is removable asswell, which will make cycling the stainless steel a lot easier once it reaches its end of life.
Materials
We designed our scale in such a way that all parts can be easily disassembled. The first reason for doing so, is because our product exists out of components with a varying lifespan. The lifetime of the scale shouldn’t end when one component breaks down. Components with a high risk of having a shorter lifespan are designed to be located at easily reachable places.
To make disassembly easier we for instance use detachable snapfits to connect the pressure plates to the frame. All other assemblies are done with screws that are all of the same type.
Maintenance
-
Screen part
-
Digital screen
-
AAA battery holder (2 places)
-
6x pressure button
-
Circuit board
-
-
Scale part
-
4x pressure plate
-
AAA battery holder (4 places)
-
USB-C port
-
Circuit board
-
Scale Components
.png)
Future
Possible risks and challenges
The uscale is a product with a very specific purpose targeted at a very niche group of people. At its core it is definitely an improvement to our ways of life and fundamentally it aims at creating a healthier environment in our lives in the kitchen. However, designing such a product does come with some risks and challenges.
About Us
The story behind Uscale.
About the project
For project "Project Virtual Product Development" the assignment was to come up with a Product Service System and to make a digital explanation that would inform and convince possible investors to invest in it. It was completely up to the groups to decide what the PSS would entail and how it would be excecuted.
11 tools were given to help excecute, visualize and detail the PSS.
About the group
This PSS, the Uscale , was designed by six second year Industrial Design Engineering students. We had weekly meetings online and, where possible, also in person to go through the different stages of product development.
We got a lot of freedom for this project, which was fun, but also a challenge.