Effectiveness of Webcam Visible Spectrometer (WeViSpec) technology dissemination at Kolej Dato’ Onn Jaafar Living Lab as an Applied Research Facility

¹ Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Universitas Negeri Jakarta, 13220 Jakarta Timur, Jakarta, Indonesia
² Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Johor Bahru, Johor, Malaysia
³ Departemen of Electrical Engineering, Institut Teknologi Indonesia, 15314 Tangerang Selatan
⁴ Department of Chemical Engineering, Politeknik Negeri Bandung, 40559 Bandung Barat, Indonesia
⁵ Research Center for Smart Mechatronics - National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), Indonesia

^* Corresponding author: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Published online: 2 July 2026

Abstract

Adulteration of honey with starch-based sweeteners is a global challenge that requires reliable yet affordable detection technology. This research disseminates the Webcam Visible Spectrometer (WeViSpec), a low-cost (USD 30.93) spectroscopy instrument that integrates off-the-shelf components with artificial intelligence, at the Kolej Dato’ Onn Jaafar (KDOJ) Living Lab, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). This instrument is designed using a 1080p HD webcam sensor and a diffraction grating from old DVD disks with a single-channel inverted optical system. Data analysis was conducted thru differential absorbance feature engineering and the use of a Variational Autoencoder (VAE) model for dimensionality reduction, as well as a Bayesian Neural Network (BNN) for predicting adulterant concentrations. The test results show that WeViSpec has high wavelength accuracy with an average error of 2.93 nm and a spectral resolution of ~5 nm. The developed AI model successfully classified the types of sweeteners with 100% accuracy and predicted concentrations with high precision (R2=0.9978) and a Limit of Detection (LOD) of 6.66% v/v. The dissemination program involving 20 participants showed very high effectiveness with an average score of 4.68 out of 5.00, confirming the successful transfer of WeViSpec technology as a functional field screening tool in the living lab ecosystem.