Chai-Fi Serves Wi-Fi With Your Tea
Indian tea company, Chakra Tea, has come up with a smart kettle that generates Wi-Fi while heating up tea water. It allows manual workers in India to get online access during their tea breaks.
India has the second-largest population of workers in the world. These workers endure extremely long days of 16 to 17 hours, with tea breaks being their only time to rest. After work, many are extremely tired, leaving them no space for any recreational activities. Workers admit that they miss having access to music or movies as part of their daily lives. As they are often relocated for their work, away from their families, friends and social circle, these workers lead a difficult life that can be isolating.
To get online and connect with the world, Indian manual workers have to resort to internet cafés which they can visit during their few spare hours outside of work. This is why Chakra Tea came up with a simple smart kettle that brings internet closer to the workers. The Chai-Fi kettle (named after ‘chai’, the Hindi word for tea) generates wifi through the stove’s energy that is released while boiling tea water. In this way, factory tea breaks are transformed into interactive moments that are enriched with endless connectivity. The Chai-Fi kettle opens up possibilities to workers that many urbanites across the developed world take for granted.