Using an Arduino and a smartwatch to measure liquid consumed from any container

Abstract

There are smart apps to track our liquid intake and remind us to drink whenever we fall short of our target. However, these apps either require a specialized container or manual input from the user. They cannot account for spilled liquid or liquid consumed by other people. We propose an app, which allows user to use a container of his choice. It consists of a detachable container base, which houses a load sensor to measure amount of liquid consumed in each sip and a smartwatch that uses accelerometer sensor data to detect drinking motion of the hand using machine learning techniques. The detachable base can be attached to any container. The smartwatch is used to eliminate accounting of spilled liquid and consumption by other people. The base requires a one time calibration for container and liquid in it. We evaluated the container base for a thermos, a disposable bottle, and a plastic water bottle, and for water, tea, milk, soda, juice and milkshake. Assuming a person consumes 25 ml of liquid per sip, amounting to 1 litre of liquid consumed a day, our proposed app reported 934 ml of liquid consumed.