Many have tried to tame the trash bin. Apps, robots, city sensors, self-tying bags. One raccoon faces them all, in a comparison it wrote itself, so you know it's fair.
Back to the keepEvery rival below solves a trash problem. Only one solves the trash problem: a full bin, an open lid, and three housemates who each thought someone else was taking it out.
 Garbage Guardian |
Smart bins Townew, sensor cans |
City bin sensors Sensoneo, Mr. Fill |
Trash-day apps Mr. Bin & co. |
Fridge alarms FRIDGGI & co. |
DIY projects Arduino + weekend |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Knows when the bin is full | laser, to the mm | tells a dashboard | eventually, maybe | |||
| Nags until it's actually emptied | escalating trumpet | notifications get swiped | ||||
| Catches an open lid | from gravity itself | they hold it open for you | wrong door | |||
| Works on the bin you already own | stick on, done | buy a whole new bin | if you own a dumpster | |||
| No app, no account, no wifi | whole cloud platform | it is an app | unless you add MQTT | |||
| No subscription, ever | pay once, own forever | proprietary bag refills | per-bin platform fees | you pay in weekends | ||
| Months on 2× AA | charging cables. For a bin. | drains your phone instead | breadboard on USB power | |||
| Is a raccoon knight | obviously |
Comparison lovingly curated to only mention the things we're great at. The rivals have their virtues; ask them, they'll tell you.
Bins that open their own lid, seal their own bag, and in one case also vacuum your floor. Marvelous machines. Machines that politely watch you walk away from a full bag. They make throwing things away easier. Nobody needed that to be easier.
The Guardian's edge: we don't make ignoring the trash more comfortable. We make it impossible. And you keep your current bin.
Serious industrial hardware that measures fill levels in street containers and reports to a cloud dashboard, so a truck-routing algorithm can feel things. Priced per bin, plus platform fees, minimum order: a municipality.
The Guardian's edge: same laser idea, but €49 once, zero cloud, and the alert goes to the actual culprit. Out loud, in the kitchen.
They know when collection day is. They do not know your bin overflowed on Tuesday, and their notification died in a pile of 47 others, swiped away between a newsletter and a missed call.
The Guardian's edge: a trumpet in the kitchen cannot be swiped away. It measures the actual trash, not the calendar.
Honorable kin! Stick-on, battery-powered, escalating beeps, no app. They proved the formula works, then guarded the wrong door. A fridge left open is an accident. A bin left full is a choice.
The Guardian's edge: we guard the door that needs judging, and we also measure what's behind it. With a laser.
We salute anyone who solders their own bin sensor. Truly. Ours just comes with an enclosure instead of a breadboard, months of battery instead of a USB cable, and it was finished before Sunday evening.
The Guardian's edge: all the honor of DIY, none of the "it worked until the tape came loose."
They came before us: a barcode scanner for your garbage, a bin that vacuums. Each demanded an app, an account, a cloud. The cloud is where their gadgets went when the servers shut down.
The Guardian's edge: no server can shut down what has no server. Yours works forever, even if we don't.
One stick-on knight, €49 once, no app, no cloud, no mercy. Reserve yours from the first batch of 100.
Reserve my guardian