Coles Is Testing A Smart Fridge Magnet You Can Dictate Your Shopping List To

So this is strange. Coles is running a trial of a device that lets you essentially dictate your shopping list to a device attached to a fridge magnet, and then automatically transmits that into information a Coles shopping list app or into a Coles Online order.

The device itself is the Hiku, which is already available to purchase in the US for $79 (right now, it doesn’t ship to Australia). Coles has seeded 50 of the devices with families in Australia and is running a test over two months to see how they use it. It uses voice recognition to allow you to add items to the list as you remember it, or you can scan the product codes on existing items.

Should this go further, I imagine there would be a trade-off — you’d score a Hiku free or at a discounted price, but it would be locked to working with Coles. (The standalone Hiku has its own shopping list app for Android or iOS.)

I’m in two minds about this. It’s definitely better to shop with a list than without one, and one advantage of the Hiku approach is that multiple people can add to the list. Then again, that’s also true if you share a Google Doc, and there’s a risk here that your kids will add more Kit Kats every three seconds. Plus, you’re tried to doing all you shopping at one supermarket. What do you think?


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

Here are the cheapest plans available for Australia’s most popular NBN speed tier.

At Lifehacker, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

Comments


12 responses to “Coles Is Testing A Smart Fridge Magnet You Can Dictate Your Shopping List To”