Making things growl, purr and sing

Abstract

Smart Things Smart Thing, with sensors, data processing and communications technologies embedded in them, are now pervading our everyday world. Smart Things Smart Thing connected by the Internet of Things Internet of Things have web-based interfaces that can be accessed on mobile devices mobile device. However, the disconnected interface introduces a Gulf of Evaluation Gulf of Evaluation that potentially reduces the usability of interactions with a Smart Thing Smart Thing. This chapter explores sonic interfaces sonic interface to Smart Things Smart Thing to close this Gulf. The first section describes an interactive couch interactive couch that purrs when it is stroked, modeled on human communications with pets. This resulted in the development of a method for designing affective sounds affective sound for interactive products. The next section describes an investigation into the aesthetics of sonic feedback sonic feedback in mobile Apps. The results indicated that more recreational users prefer more musical sounds, whilst more competitive users prefer more functional sounding feedback. In the next section we explored the functionality of embedding real-time sonifications real-time sonification as interfaces to Smart Things Smart Thing designed for outdoor activities. The technical challenges of synthesizing sounds on an Arduino Arduino microprocessor resulted in the development of the open source Mozzi Mozzi library for embedded sonification embedded sonification. The final section describes artistic installations and scientific projects created by the Mozzi community.