Wearables UX

Moff is a gesture-controlled wearable tech bracelet for children that transforms everyday objects to toys by animating them with sound effects.  Moff works with an app that allows you to select a variety of play experiences from magic wands to a guitar.

The bracelet contains a 3 axis accelerometer, gyroscope and Bluetooth to connect to the app. 

Moff is creating a new imaginative play gaming experience for kids. It’s delightful to see wearables in the kids space that link technology to imagination. 

Moff is available for pre-order for $53.99.

A lot of the exciting “future is now” stuff we see online these days comes with the caveat that it currently only exists in a secret underground university laboratory. Unfortunately, like generations of humans before us, we too must wait for the future.

That’s why I’m pretty excited to see the Motorola + VivaLnk digital tattoo project available to buy for a buck (US) each (in packs of ten) and ready to roll:

Photo: Motorola

And here’s how it works:

What’s that, I hear you say?  Their marketing says it takes the average user 2.3 seconds to access their phone and we do this approximately 39 times a day?  But you know MATH so you’ve figured out that it will only save about 90 seconds per day of your precious time.  Quit your whining and welcome to the future, baby.

For all of you trekking out to Austin today, there is a lot going on this year around wearable technology. Check out my list of talks and events not to be missed. Also if you are in Austin, please say “hi” and ping me on Twitter @fashioningtech.

See you in Austin! 

Talks

Friday

Designing Smart Objects for Emotional People

OMMA: Do Brands Fit in with Wearable Computing?

Saturday

Body Computing: The Future of Networked Humans

My Sensors. My Data?

Connected Fitness 2.0: Shaping Healthy Behaviors

Wearable Computing: Now, Near & Next Generation

Embeddables: The Next Evolution of Wearable Tech

SXSW Accelerator: Wearable Technologies

Sunday 

Interaction Design for the Post-Screen World

The Connected Body – Can We Get Value from Wearables

Why Fashion Is The Future Of Wearable Technology

Monday 

Form & Function: Designing Devices You Want to Wear

From Dream to Reality: Building a Wearable Concept

Events

Hardware Happy Hour

Saturday, March 8th, 4 -7 pm 

Indiegogo Tech Cafe (Christian Science Reading Room), 102 Trinity Street

Misfit hosting with Indiegogo, Breathometer, Sticknfind, giving away Shines

SXSWearables
Sunday, March 9th, 10:30 am – 1pm
Swift’s Attic, 315 Congress Ave
Rock Health hosting, Misfit giving away Coca Cola Red Shines

PixMob has done it again by creating another wearable that turns show participants into part of a large screen. This opportunity to create interactive environments with PixMob’s ability to push realtime content really excites me. I cannot see what they come up with next.

 

The entire show is controlled by blasting the crowd with IR signal to tell their pixels which color to be. Even the 80k pixels make for a quite low resolution from what we’re used to, so there is a great bit of work in using movement and color for the show instead of the graphics we’re used displaying during shows. Wired got some behind the scenes footage of their testing for for the show here.

The stadium was outfitted with 14 transmitters which beamed video onto the audience

 

 

@Hamelin_MP: Fortunately, #pixmob is not the #halftimeshow every Sunday! @PixMobOfficial #stress #dreamjob #sb48 pic.twitter.com/1KkDJI1Kwu

of the possibilities of this Bead of PoixMob says they can be:

Woven into costumes, PixMob Beads illuminate a dancer’s body, opening up creative possibilities through movement, shadow-play and space. They can remotely light-up or react to body motion.

 

 

 

Early versions of their Xylobands were used for Cold Play

 

A more sleek version as built for Eurovision

 

 

[UPDATE 2014-FEB-4] 

The gory details of the coordination can be found in their recently awarded patent:  https://www.google.com/patents/US20130250184 

 

 

Ad agencies are quickly embracing wearable technology as a means of creating novel and exciting experiences for brands. 

The Cadbury Joy Jackets, commissioned by PR agency Golin Harris and developed by the creatives at Hirsch&Mann, are a set of jackets that do just about everything. They talk, light up, inflate, and even shoot confetti. Ah…but they don’t tweet!!! 

Perhaps the project was meant to be over-the-top but it unfortunately feels like a mish-mash of appropriated wearable concepts. 

Do note that we will certainly be seeing more sensational advertising wearables as agencies with plush budgets commission small interactive studios to create newsworthy wearable experiences. 

via PSFK

A nicely designed example of anthropomorphic fashion, 汇(HUI) is an interactive garment that takes its visual and behavioral cues from the hedgehog (It’s name as well).

Created by artist Yougsil Lee, the garment, in its normal, relaxed state, gently pulses with white light. When threatened, such as someone approaching the garment quickly, the spikes located on the front bodice animate and LEDs turn cautionary red. 

 Similar to Wipprecht’s Spider Dress, Lee’s garment protects the body. 

With the development of wearable technology products, the need for different types of user interactions arises. Often the interaction language from one field is borrowed and supplanted onto another with ill results. No, we don’t want a red push button switch on our clothes. And yet again no — we really don’t want to “zip” things on and off if  the zipper already performs an important function.

So a need to develop a new interaction language — a new BUI (Bodily User Interface) of sorts arises. Assembly, a research project by Emily Carr University student Lorea Sinclaire, explores different bodily gestures to interact with a mobile phone.

Interactions such as buttoning a coat, sends a signal of your location while stroking your hemline will send out a call to a friend. My personal favorite, hugging yourself and swiping your outer arms, signals you need help.

Assembly just skims the possible gestural and bodily interactions a user may use to interface with their mobile devices but it does begin to imagine a world where body language becomes a novel way to communicate with our electronic objects.

In addition to exploring a BUI, Assembly also explores haptic feedback as a form of notification.  The intensity of the vibration from the motors located in the coat indicates the priority of the notification.

The wearable prototype is made using conductive thread sewn to detachable electronic modules. The flexible system is designed in a modular fashion so it can be upgraded with ease.

I’ve been enjoying the other posts about the Superhero Design Challenge and decided to write a bit about my own experiences designing and building Captain Chronomek. 

 

My wife and I have been designing costumes together for many years: we do this in our limited spare time, and it provides us with a chance to create interesting things without the need to justify them as “research” (we are both PhD students, at SFU’s School of Interactive Arts + Technology). 

 

It seems cliched to say that we were into Steampunk before it was cool to be into Steampunk, and honestly we didn’t get serious about incorporating a historical aesthetic into our costumes until a few years ago.  However, it has always been important to us to create costumes that look and feel like clothing that a character would wear. 

 

For Captain Chronomek we tried to emphasize different textiles and materials: texture was a very important part of our concept for the character, as was a sense that the costume had been lived in.  One regret I have is that we did not have as much time to distress and age the fabrics as much as I would have liked.  As with any project done to a firm deadline, there are always details that one would change if given the opportunity.

 

The narrative for the character was that he was an Industrial Revolution era machinist who had been chosen by a benevolent group of time-traveling aliens to defend history against an evil group of time-traveling aliens  (for full origin story and a montage of the design process, check out Captain Chronomek on YouTube, where you can read a very melodramatic description of his history).   Captain Chronomek is part Doctor Who, part Macgyver, and part Sherlock Holmes:  he travels through time solving mysteries, and repairing damage done to the timeline.  Along the way, he is forced to improvise weapons, equipment, and clothing, using whatever technology is available to him at the time. 

 

In this sense, we wanted him to really reflect our own maker aesthetics:  much of the costume is re-appropriated materials, historical interfaces, and found objects.  For example, the clock that serves as the interface for his time-traveling powers is constructed with Nixie Tubes:  historical vacuum tubes that predate today’s seven-segment led numerical displays.  The device that we built to act as his “temporal disturbance detector” uses an old ColecoVision controller as the platform, along with parts from an antique heat gun and soldering iron.  It also has a functioning Arduino Lilypad, several functioning buttons, and a number of blinking lights.  Is it messy? Yes.  Is its messiness narratively appropriate?  We think so.  We used a mixture of old and new technologies to treat the textiles in the costume.  The wings are hand dyed and distressed, and much of the leather work is done by hand.  However, the logos are all laser cut out of leather, and the nixie clock uses a modern microcontroller and power supply.  The wings were made using a peg and dowel construction method, and wrapped in black hockey tape for texture and stability.  This did not prevent me from shearing off one of my wings during the runway show at TEI, when it got over-extended and caught on the theatre wall.

 

We wanted to create a time traveler that didn’t take himself too seriously.  With Captain Chronomek, we set out to create a whimsical character with a historical riff off of the genre tropes of time travel and superheroes.  His “time spanner” is a direct nod to Doctor Who’s sonic screwdriver, and his wings are meant to replace the traditional cape with a functional alternative that is reminiscent of Da Vinci’s flying machines.    The TEI superhero design challenge was an amazing opportunity to put our work in front of some of the most innovative and forward thinking people designing wearable and tangible technology, and we had a blast doing it!

BirthmarkTattoo

I’ve stumbled upon a few interesting projects that use skin as an interface. The latest is Birthmarks Tattoo by Arjan Groot and Menno Wittebrood. The birthmark tattoos use Braille as a way of infusing skin with an abstract message. Philips Design also developed a very sensual concept video that uses the skin as both an expressive and aesthetic interface.

Self-destructive Object

Lastly, designer Yu-Chiao Wang is developing interesting concepts around her ‘Self-destructive Object” series that design and decorate the body.