Bintracker Mobi

For this project, Cobalt followed a tailored development process which broke up the project into clear stages. From the outset, it was clear that the project involved 3 elements that needed to be resolved individually, and then holistically.

• Mechanical systems
• Usability issues and physical configuration/packaging
• Electronics, firmware and IoT comms

Our initial discovery stage included observing commercial cleaners within typical multi-tenanted office buildings. Through this, we realised that the cleaner’s acceptance of the device was key to the product’s success. This led to the product specification being expanded to include a wireless phone charger.

We also mapped the technical parameters. Of these, a critical mechanical challenge was the best way cleaners can quickly hang and weigh a full rubbish bag – without these tearing. Several mechanical theories were mocked up and tested.

In the next stage, we developed concepts that ‘packaged’ electronic and mechanical systems while considering usability issues. From this, a preferred concept was shortlisted and we moved to the product-engineering phase, including DfM, CAD modelling, and mechanical & electronics design, culminating in a Beta prototype.

Several rounds of engineering refinement and concurrent firmware development followed. As did prototyping through to Alpha prototypes, supplier management and troubleshooting production issues.

The result meets the original brief as well as the new requirements identified during development. Client and industry/customer reaction to the finished product has been enthusiastic, with sales requiring a second production order to be brought ahead of schedule.

Through holistic, user-centred design development, Bintracker Mobi exceeds the design brief and meets all design excellence criteria. The result is a world-first product, showcasing the power of multi-disciplined innovation.

Function: Mobi fits any wheely bin or trolley via a quick-release mechanism based on the humble caulking gun. Its rubber ‘cam action’ grippers gently but firmly hold anything from thin liners to heavy-duty rubbish bags. The device’s bright OLED displays weights before sending these to the user’s phone via Bluetooth. Users can tare the weight, or choose metric/imperial units via a simple control panel. Hot-swappable batteries ensure the unit is always available. Clever programming minimises power consumption, resulting in battery life far exceeding the brief. Optional accessories extend usability; including a basket for flattened-cardboard and a multi-sized bag for loose items.

Accessibility: Knowing cleaners would simply workaround something that made their already tough job harder or longer to do, drove us to make Mobi cleaner-friendly and quick-to-use. For example, the phone charger negates the possible (‘low-power-anxiety’) reluctance of using Mobi.

Aesthetics: Mobi’s visual design language encourages both facility managers and cleaners to perceive the device as a precision measuring device, rather than a regular cleaning tool. It avoids the obvious but alienating “power tool” aesthetic for a gender-neutral, ‘tech’ aesthetic.

Quality, Safety: The device, and materials selection, have been designed to withstand the rigours of commercial cleaning. It conforms to all applicable Australian Standards as well as European (CE), US (FCC) and ROHS compliance, among others.

Sustainability: Mobi’s ‘reason-for-being’ is to accelerate behavioural change in our attitude to waste. “You can’t manage what you can’t measure” is both famous and true in this case. Giving managers and individuals a metric to improve upon empowers them to reduce the unsustainable tendency to throw away precious resources.

Gurru Australia (including the Bintracker app and its supporting analytics) is already a global leader in waste-management tracking/management systems. The Mobi takes this to a whole new level; being a world-first, and providing gram-accurate waste data to be collected right at the point of collection. Therefore beyond meeting the brief, the project gave us an opportunity to define the category. This presented several new “never encountered, never solved” use cases to work out, and encouraged innovations including:

Grippers: From a commercial cleaner’s viewpoint, Mobi interrupts their workflow. Which current is; (a) Collecting bin liners (from an office-kitchen or wastepaper bin etc), and; (b) dropping these into a wheely bin. Therefore we needed a way for cleaners to quickly weigh individual bags between steps (a) and (b). Bin liners vary in thickness between 8-30 microns; either easily torn or bulky when bundled. Mobi’s grippers are opposing rubber cam-shaped cogs, spaced apart to grip a binliner regardless of its thickness. That is, as the binliner is placed between the grippers they rotate and their offset cogs move closer, mesh and grip as tightly as needed under the bag’s own weight. In practice, ‘hanging’ and removal is intuitive requiring the briefest time/effort.

Bluetooth Broadcasting: To make the device as easy to use as possible for cleaners, we chose the BLE Bluetooth protocol. This removes the need to find or pair with Mobi at the start of each cleaning shift.

Clamping: Mobi needs to fit onto all common wheely bins and cleaner trolleys. Whilst similar, the rims of these vary in width, so a variable clamp was needed. Looking for a simple, reliable, fast and intuitive mechanism, we referenced and adapted the ratchet found in caulking guns. This provided all the clamping performance needed for this application.

As described elsewhere in this submission, Mobi is a critical piece of a system that can drive real change in people’s attitudes to waste.

Currently, individual businesses within multi-tenanted office buildings or industrial parks have limited ways of managing their waste, let alone being encouraged to reduce this - as waste collection services are charged on a fixed/shared basis across the whole site. Similarly for large businesses, where smaller departments or groups can’t see any data on the waste that their team generate. This is because waste weight is currently only measured at aggregation points, if at all.

Mobi solves this gap, and any level of granularity can be reviewed; allowing even individuals’ bins to be tagged and monitored. Similarly, different waste types (i.e. landfill, recycling, organics etc) can be tracked via Mobi.

Moving to a pay-per-use model for waste has commenced, but progress is much slower than other utilities and services. For example, smart electricity meters allow power providers and power consumers to manage both sides of the provision/consumption model. Bintracker and Mobi are the ‘smart meters’ of waste, where accurate data and accountability will drive responsible/sustainable behaviours one employee, department or business at a time.

Lastly, this project certainly enhances Victoria’s innovation reputation. Fundamentally, it’s an example of Australia’s mindset to be prepared to challenge the status quo and disrupt traditional or wasteful practices, combined with our clever use of practical technologies.

We believe this project’s positive impact on Sustainability makes it a candidate for this accolade.

That is, Mobi exists to drive more accountable waste management, and ultimately for societies to produce less waste, while greater reuse and recycling.