Design of an interactive smart trashcan

In this paper Jože Guna and his colleagues present the design process of building an interactive smart trashcan. First, we provide the overview of the smart trashcan field for several domains. We made an overview of professional solutions for city operators as well as garbage collecting facilities. Then we examined home based solutions for personal use, which provide convenience for the people. Technological novelty and excellence has limited reach if people are not using the product or system. Therefore, we studied the user interactions and principles, like gamification, for increased adoption of using the smart trashcan systems and averseness of the environmental and waste recycling topics. Although smart trashcan systems provide value for the people, they can pose a risk for their privacy or present inconvenience for them. At the end, we present our own prototype solution of smart trashcan. In our design, we tried to incorporate the best practices identified in field overview from the technological side and the user interactions with the trashcan. The prototype solution should be easy to use, has good interaction with people and motivates people to increase care for the environment.

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