=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-402/paper-6
|storemode=property
|title=InfoPulse: a Wristworn Ambient Display
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-402/paper06.pdf
|volume=Vol-402
}}
==InfoPulse: a Wristworn Ambient Display==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-402/paper06.pdf
InfoPulse: a Wristworn Ambient Display
Eric Migicovsky
Systems Design Engineering
University of Waterloo
Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1 Canada
+1 519 721 6700
emigicov@engmail.uwaterloo.ca
ABSTRACT music track while biking down a busy street or even
This report describes the design process behind the something as simple as checking email while in the midst
creation of the InfoPulse, an innovative smartphone of a phone conversation. For voice calls, Bluetooth
accessory. The InfoPulse is an ambient information display headsets address some factors but offer no way of
designed into the form factor of a standard wristwatch. accessing the vast amount of text information that is
Connected wirelessly to nearby smartphone, it receives available on modern smartphones. This project endeavours
and discreetly displays important information, like recently to design a similar device to enable mobile text display,
received text messages, emails and calendar alerts, to the creating a 'Bluetooth headset for email and SMS,'
user. Designed to function without interaction from the positioned as a companion piece of hardware to a
user, the InfoPulse acts as a handsfree email reading smartphone.
device, perfect to catch a quick glance without distracting
too much from a user's primary task. The process The idea was initially influenced by a fairly common
culminates with the development of a physical prototype problem experienced by those who bicycle often on busy
that demonstrates proof-of-concept functionality. car-heavy streets. Normally when your cell phone rings or
vibrates, it is trivial to reach down and answer the alert.
Keywords But in a high pressure and potentially unsafe environment,
Ambient information system, smartphones, ubiquitous one cannot spare the limb and attention necessary to
computing, displays, wireless communication. execute this manoeuvre. This problem is amplified by
visually complex operating systems (OS) or difficult one-
INTRODUCTION handed operation on the smartphone itself. After
Smart mobile devices, common examples being the RIM discussing the problem with several bicycle and mobile
Blackberry, Apple iPhone and Nokia n95, offer users phone users, it was clear that safety would be greatly
connectivity and communication options that were unheard improved by providing these users with an alternative
of in previous generations of mobile phones. Offering the means of monitoring incoming calls, SMS and email.
addictive lure of constant email and IM access,
smartphones are found consistently in the pockets of Users in other situations could also benefit from a similar
students, business people, commuters and those with an solution. For those who move around constantly
affinity for new gadgets. As useful as they are, throughout the day, a smartphone is sometimes the only
smartphones are usually quite large, bulky and heavy. tool that enables them to keep in touch with the external
world. Therefore, in business meetings it is common to
The increasing proliferation of smartphones poses several hear the buzz of a smartphone, indicating an incoming
problems that are becoming more evident. The normal use email, followed by the user immediately pulling out the
of these devices in everyday situations may present a device to check the display. This action comes almost as a
safety hazard, a distraction from a primary task or simply second nature to the habitual Blackberry user and usually
an inconvenience. Through an analysis of these flaws, presents quite a distraction to the remainder of the group
several areas for improvement were found. The design members. This problem is caused by the limited
process was used to determine the best course of action information conveyed by initial vibration of the
needed to overcome these deficiencies. smartphone. The binary indicator does not allow the user
to make the distinction between an important time
MOTIVATION sensitive SMS and intra-office forwarded email.
In the mobile device arena, multi-tasking entails juggling
between separate physical tasks, like checking caller ID Allowing the user to make a more informed time-
before answering a phone call while driving, changing a management decision is one of the basic benefits that this
sort of device could offer. These simple scenarios
Copyright © 2008 for the individual papers by the papers' demonstrate particular ways in which a smartphone
authors. Copying permitted for private and academic companion display would help, but in essence any existing
purposes. Re-publication of material from this volume smartphone user in a position where it is inconvenient to
requires permission by the copyright owners. use their phone traditionally would benefit from this
device.
• Eliminate the need for the user to repetitively check
EXISTING SOLUTIONS or interact with their smartphone by allowing
Over the last few years, sales of smartphones have greatly information to pass ambiently (without user
increased within the general mobile market. While intervention) from the smartphone to the user.
Blackberry by RIM was one of the first to allow constant • Minimize any interference with regular activity by
email access in a mobile form-factor, this feature is now ensuring that any body worn device is slim and
common on all smartphones. Previously only found unobtrusive.
hanging on the belts of busy business men rushing through • Able to connect wirelessly to a nearby smartphone
a downtown core, email capable devices are being snapped to receive data streams.
up by office-less workers, commuters, students and • Software running on the smartphone must be
frequent travelers. It is estimated that over 116 million capable of prioritizing and filtering data sent to the
smartphones were sold in 2007 [1]. The capability for device based on importance, keeping in line with
ubiquitous computing, through these increasingly capable the functionality requirement to limit user
mobile computing platforms, has finally reached the distraction.
mainstream.
Concept generation
In the past, several attempts were proposed (and some In order for the display to be available to the user at any
executed) to realize a system of body-worn mobile devices given time, the device must take on a form that the user
designed to deliver information more directly to the user. could carry or wear at all times. As it has been made clear
Computer science students at the University of South in the above sections, the form factor of a watch has
Australia developed a prototype of a simple liquid crystal always been seen as the main option. There were several
display (LCD) powered watch that was capable of reasons for this choice. From an efficiency standpoint,
displaying the output for several different applications [2]. watches are accessible by the user without any particular
It connects by Bluetooth to a 'Personal Server' or PerServ, physical interaction, allowing for hands-free operation.
a separate personal digital assistant (PDA) that would in Watches are already an accepted article of wardrobe,
turn be connected to the internet by WiFi. though currently observed to be declining in popularity
[5].
Other research explores mobile personal data servers
lacking input or output mechanisms but capable of The purpose of this device is not to replace the large, high-
wirelessly 'hijacking' nearby displays and keyboards. Intel resolution, colour screen of a smartphone but to
Research developed a prototype of a lightweight portable complement it by providing an alternate text display
server, the size of a deck of cards, designed to store all of location. Several screen technologies were applicable
the users computer files like email, documents, music and including monochrome graphical liquid crystal displays
video [3]. It was designed to wirelessly serve these data to (LCD) and organic light-emitting diodes (OLED). LCDs
local screens or computers that the user was close to, are robust, affordable and easy to work with. Many small-
eliminating the need to carry a bulky laptop but preserving scale electronics companies offer wide varieties of choices:
the security and privacy that comes with the ability to black/white to colour, resolution, refresh rate, power
physically guard data. consumption. Disadvantages particularly relevant to this
application revolved around power consumption: LCDs
In the general market, only a few products have emerged work by modulating light that passes through the screen,
which offer more personal and efficient access to mobile so a backlight is needed to illuminate the screen in low-
data. Fossil designed a companion watch for Sony Ericsson light conditions. A relatively new entry into the field of
mobile phones in 2005 [4]. The second revision of the mobile screens are OLED displays. These displays are
product line, the astutely named MBW-150 watch, inherently more power efficient because light is created
connects over Bluetooth to a nearby mobile phone and within the display by efficient LEDs, eliminating the need
shows an alert right on the watch face when an SMS or for a backlight. Unfortunately, OLED technology is still
incoming call is received. According to specifications, this quite expensive, with rough estimates of small 1.5”
product should be able to function for up to 7 days on one screens being triple the price of a similar LCD [5]. For
charge. prototyping purposes, the choice was made to select a low-
cost monochrome LCD screen, that could coincidentally be
DEVICE salvaged from the extraordinarily common Nokia 3310 cell
A prototype device was developed to determine if the phone. This screen draws only 1mA, though does not
problems addressed above could be solved by a new include a backlight.
device.
User input on a device as small as a watch is very difficult.
Requirements Existing solutions, like wristwatches themselves, rarely
• Increase user awareness of data being received by include many user adjustable features simply because it is
their smartphone by providing the user with real difficult to provide a clear and user friendly method of
time access to information such as: incoming caller interacting with such a small device. The calculator watch
ID, SMS, email and music track information. is a typical example. Acting upon Gaber's [6] principle of
pervasive computing, which describes spontaneous Prototype
networks created between devices intent on sharing The prototype was assembled through a period of several
available services and computing power, the device should months at TU Delft. Since cost and availability were
be able to leverage the fact that it is connected to a more considered during design selection, most components were
powerful input/output service (the smartphone). Inputs easy to buy from online electronic component suppliers..
must be limited to yes/no confirmations and other simple Components were integrated together on a breadboard
choices. Implementations like the 'magic' button on the while Arduino software was written to allow the Nokia
Apple iPhone microphone-headphone demonstrates how a 3310 screen to interface with the microcontroller. After
simple binary input can be multiplexed to serve several successfully testing the design on the breadboard, the
different functions depending on the current application in design was implemented on a printed circuit board (PCB).
use. Figures 1 shows the prototype in it's current form.
Several competing standards were available in terms of
low power, short range (<3m) wireless communication.
The Bluetooth standard was by far the most well known.
Implemented in millions of devices worldwide, from cell
phones to cars, it connects devices together spontaneously
to share information. Unfortunately it depends on a larger
power source than possible for a constantly communicating
watch application. A standard Bluetooth Philips BGW203
Bluetooth module consumes at a minimum 8 mA in active
mode [7]. To get around this consumption problem, other
low power sensor applications like the Nike+ running
activity monitoring system, take advantage of the Nordic
line of radio frequency (RF) transceivers [8]. Nike
designed a special interface dongle to receive data from
their shoe sensor and relay it to an iPod. The Nordic sensor
uses fractions of the power of a Bluetooth module since it
is designed for much shorter distances. The design here
somewhat mimics the setup of the Nike+ system: the
watch will have a Nordic wireless transceiver built in
while a separate dongle will be designed to plug into Fig. 1 Photo of the completed prototype in music
various smartphones to receive the signal. track mode
To keep the whole system running together, a CONCLUSION
microcontroller interfaced between all subsystems. There The prototype presents a proof-of-concept version of a
are a multitude of microcontroller options and the basic wrist-mounted ambient information display. Looking at
requirements for low-power, size, weight, connectivity did the physical prototype, it is possible to see how this sort of
not help to limit the options down too far. In lieu of a design could be adopted by users. It presents information
strong reasoning, a familiar option was selected: the in a readily available format, giving users quick access to
ATmega 168 chipset within the open-source Arduino data that would otherwise be accessible solely on a
environment. The Arduino is easy to program in C and has smartphone screen. The display is capable of playing back
a large public following online, offering many avenues for preset example messages but currently lacks smartphone
support. Since the Arduino has published printed circuit side software to relay messages in real time.
board (PCB) and schematics drawings available online, it
is very easy to integrate it into a custom design. The future of technology in this sector rapidly shifts. Since
the tech specs were locked down for prototyping back in
Several competing battery technologies (nickel-metal June, equipment manufacturers have already released
hydride, lithium-ion and lithium-ion polymer) are revisions of components in the design. Longer term plans
available small applications. Lithium-ion (Li-ion) from the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) towards
currently represents the most efficient form of energy Ultra-low Power (ULP) Bluetooth now appear to be much
storage, in terms of energy density or Watt-hours per more relevant, especially if new smartphones released in
kilogram, for a mobile device of this size. Li-ion's close 2009 begin to offer this connectivity option [9].
cousin, lithium-ion polymer, has a similar chemistry but is
slightly cheaper. Li-poly batteries are currently used in ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
many mobile applications like cellphones and cameras. A I would like to specially thank the Studio Lab staff from
3 gram, 100mAh li-poly battery was selected for this the IO Faculty at TU Delft. Rob Luxen, in particular,
application. provided excellent advice and access to tools.
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