Whenda — An idea, to manage gadgets, is born
“Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game”
Where do the ideas come from? Some say its in solitude. Some say its when they converse with others. For the author, it was a moment of solitude in the rest room seated atop a commode. Looking up (this was before Housing started the Look up adverts), i saw a huge Racold hot water geyser bathing in the warm sunlight coming through the slit ventilation. Underneath the Geyser were a few stickers indicating the model of the geyser, some warning instructions and QA test status of the Geyser. Beside the model number was a cryptic image that seemed like a QR code. This got me curious. Why was a QR code stuck underneath a geyser? Did it have a purpose either during the manufacture process or the distribution or after the sale of the appliance?
Hey what if it was really there for the consumer to scan the code and it reports a problem about the appliance to the manufacturer?
Ages ago one could afford to come out of bath and shout ‘Eureka’ in public. But doing that in the current age is tantamount to crime. The first thing, the author tried is to test the purpose of the QR code by scanning it with his smartphone . After some unsuccessful attempts, giving up the quest seemed the only viable option. But the idea stuck. What if every gadget/appliance at home came with a unique QR code and all a consumer had to do was to scan it to
1> report problems to the manufacturer/service center
2> get product details like model, purchase date, warranty info, manuals etc
3> Sell it on a second’s site like OLX, Quikr, craigslist or facebook pages like second-to-none etc.
Some mining on the web revealed that such an idea didn’t exist in real life. A few doubts and months later (on why such a simple idea hasn’t been thought of before) the author with help from friends and family has begun a quest of building an application. A minimum viable product of this has been launched in the Google Playstore last week. It’s named Whenda. It stands for ‘When Da (the) gadgets need ya’. It’s been launched with a vision that the ‘Consumer should be in the middle of the gadgets they use in their homes’. In its current state, Whenda is a little productivity utility for a consumer to store all her/his appliance information like purchase receipts/Warranty info in a couple of taps. In turn Whenda provides with actions like contacting appliance customer care (either through phone/mail) or locating the nearest service center and also some customized informative tips and special offers tailored for the consumer. There will be host of useful features that would be added to the app in the near future. The day is not far off when each gadget gets its own QR code (or a simple SOS button).
As of Jul 2017, Whenda App remains on the Android playstore. Meanwhile Whenda has transformed to a B2B business and enticing Small and Medium Enterprises with our Next Gen Asset Management SaaS. You could signup to know more.
