By blending Internet of Things (IoT) with flavours, these India based Chai Walas are turning your tea cups into smart chai
What if you are greeted by a long queue at the counter when you visit a tea joint for a steaming cup of chai? Having to wait is not really great amid a hectic day. Now imagine a robot replacing the manual chai-maker, reading your typical preferences and offering you a cup of your favourite flavour in no time. Or a machine that can fill up your cup of chai with fresh milk instead of premixed beverages at your office premises. What about another robot brewing your chai the handmade way, bringing the taste of your mom’s hand far away from home? These are exactly what several tea joints in India doing to provide their customers a splendid experience of chai using IoT.
This chai brewer can read your mind
Arya is an IoT enabled smart device that works with multiple cloud micro-services hosted on Amazon AWS. Arya uses a combination of Google Assistant, Amazon Lex and core IoT services to talk with a user and answer his/her queries. Arya has a camera in the front to recognize a user. It uses computer vision to identify the user and map it to the database to fetch the recipe that user like the most.
This means if you walk in front of Arya, it will greet you calling your name, read your favourite flavour and ask you if it should blend a cup of say Masala Chai – the one that you like the most. Thus Arya understands who it is speaking to and what does that user typically prefer.
Arya is built using custom-designed electronics with patented technology to make a perfect cup of Chai.It can be remotely diagnosed as it sends data back to the central server about ingredient quantity, system, and network information.
Explaining the role of IoT here, Akash Takyar, chief executive officer (CEO) and one of the co-founders at Arya, said: “Arya is an IoT device that is connected to Google Cloud IoT. Arya sends usage data and also collect feedback. Based on user’s feedback collected, Arya receives ingredients dispensing adjustment to improve recipe building process. As Arya is connected, the user can also place an order remotely and Arya will make the perfect cup of Chai.”
Arya’s core technology is the combination of computer vision, voice, cloud APIs and mechanics that makes a cup of chai using user’s instruction.
Talking about Arya’s journey and its road map ahead, Akash added: “Getting a good cup of chai at offices is tough. Customers’ choices got limited to either street vendors or expensive cafes. Also, chai made with tea bags doesn’t give the flavor of boiled home-like chai. In 2016, a team of artificial intelligence (AI) experts, industrial automation, and IoT engineers collaborated to solve this chai problem with IoT. After two years of efforts and six iterations, a production-ready robot that can be installed in offices to make custom chai using real ingredients has been made ready. Arya will soon be available at malls, cafes, airports and offices.”
