Some Assembly Required - The idea

Assembling furniture requires sorting dozens of pieces and fasteners, reading a 10+ page instruction manual, and incredible patience.  DIY assembly needs to move into the 21st century.

Instead of getting a manual with the furniture pieces, the consumer would get a RFID scanner that can connect to a smartphone or tablet. The RFID scanner and the companion app would be used to scan the embedded RFID chips in the different pieces.

The user would start by quickly running the scanner over all of the pieces in quick-scan mode. If any piece was missing it would be immediately clear (not a last minute surprise). Once the quick scan is finished, the app would instruct the user on the first pieces that are needed for assembly (with pictures). The user would then scan the pieces to verify they are the correct ones. Next, the app would describe how to combine the pieces together. This process would repeat throughout the assembly process.

It’s easy to see how this could make the frustrating process of furniture assembly much better, but it could also enable people to put together different products that would otherwise be too complex. This same idea could be applied to home assembly of some home electronics and children’s toys.  The task of assembling a toy that is made of 100 pieces is pretty daunting unless it’s made completely simple and straightforward.