It goes without saying that Google has some incredibly smart people working inside of its hallowed halls, we just didn’t know that they would be applying those genius intellects towards making beer dispensing a geeky-fun experience.
That’s exactly what Paul Carff, a Googler working as a developer advocate for the Google TV project, decided to do with his home beer tap after growing bored with making his own brew in his garage. By combining an Arduino board with an Ice Cream Sandwich powered XOOM tablet, Carff created an automatic beer dispensing system that uses an NFC reader to verify your identity before it pours some suds for you.
Depicted in the video above, the KegDroid uses various sensors to monitor the level of beer left in its kegs, as well as keeping tabs on the temperature inside the refrigeration unit to ensure that you always get a frosty mugful of the delicious liquid.
While the idea behind the KegDroid isn’t exactly a new one (Carff forked off from an earlier project called the Kegbot), Carff’s approach to the project was different in the fact that he used hardware from the Android Open Accessory Development Kit to create a bridge between his Kegerator pumps and the application he used on his Motorola XOOM. Of course, he also decided to create a custom Android body to house the taps and hold the tablet for easy viewing.
The cost to create one of these yourself is surprisingly cheap. After doing a quick tally of the parts that the Kegbot project recommends, you could be pouring your own beer at home for around $600 (that’s for a unit not using a tablet like Carff did). Not a bad weekend project to surprise your poker buddies with at the next get together. The best part of the whole project is that it’s totally open for you to customize any way you want. The Arduino board allows you to experiment with different ideas and make your beer dreams become reality.
Read more at the Next Web, via the LaughingSquid
