Umbrellas as a service - Spring 2021
During my master thesis I found some types of products that could be greatly suitable for circular economy business models. I have thought about some more or less goofy ideas of how to make them reality, but instead of keeping it all in my head I decided to make a quick sketch of how it could be possible to use new technology to make a service more attractive.
One type of products suitable for the circular economy are "products that are only used once in a while". Most common things to share in this category are utility trailers, drilling machines or ladders. Currently it is most common to share more expensive or space consuming products, but also smaller and cheaper products are suitable if they are part of an attractive service. Since this is just a quick doodle I have not made a specific user study for this case but instead make use of the user insights I received throughout my master thesis on this topic.
The main idea to make umbrellas more attractive to share is to make it possible to both get from door to door without being soaked but also find an umbrella when the rain comes fast and you need to find cover quickly. For this a mobile supply robot cruises the city when the forecast shows a high probability of rain. Either you find it and intersect it on the map, or you "request drive up" and the closest robot will come to your location.
When the user get close to the umbrella supply robot an umbrella can be unlocked through NFC by tapping the phone towards the handle of the umbrella. If the phone does not have the NFC functionality it's also possible to enter a short code manually to unlock the umbrella which makes it possible to fetch the umbrella from the robot and make it possible to unfold the umbrella and get cover from the rain. When the umbrella unfolds the timer starts and you pay by the minute. When the umbrella folds, the timer and cost stops and the user are advised to place the umbrella folded, against a wall, standing up and well visible to make it easier for another user to find it and for the service provider to collect them when the rain stops.
