Boston-based company Soofa creates smart park benches that turns them into solar-powered points that can be used for charging phones and offering local information.
Soofas are benches that offer a place of rest in parks and streets, but they are also equipped solar panels and USB sockets for to allow one to charge their smartphones.
This smart bench utilizes the furniture in our urban environments and enables city dwellers to benefit from sitting at the bench.
These benches also come with metrics that monitor the environment, such as noise levels, air quality, or crowdedness. Members of the public can then log on to the Soofa website to see if it is a good time to head to the park.
Developed through MIT Media Lab’s Changing Environment project, 6 Soofas are already in use at locations around Boston, with 4 more upcoming installations.
Soofa’s mission is to change environments into a social, sustainable and smart space.
[via Springwise]