RISE
Smart Clock and Mobile Application
February - April 2022TL;Dr
We created a multi-sensory tool that engages with the user’s semantic senses to produce a seamless wake up experience. The tool consisted of an alarm clock and a mobile app that work together to effectively wake the user during their lightest sleep phase, utilizing auditory, visual, and touch components. The prototype includes three task-driven wake-up methods and a "surprise me" function.
The Prompt
Create a product that is to combine speculative design strategies and a somatic approach to critical making in order to produce a speculative design project that engages with multiple somato-sensory experiences, such as the visual, auditory, haptic, and kinaesthetic experiences that humans encounter through the senses of sight, hearing, touch, and motion. The aim here is to consider the ways in which the human body shapes the user’s perception of their interaction with media technologies and digital interfaces. Develop a speculative multi-sensory tool that engages the user’s somatic senses as an experiential mode of interaction with media technologies, including screen-based technologies like smartphones.
Our group immediately began the conceptualizing the idea through reflection of day-to-day objects that we interact with as well as our experiences with them. One common area we all found that had potential for a revamp was the the way we wake up. We all collectively shared the same experience of our cellphones not doing the trick in terms of a standard alarm and required an extra “oomph” to to stop us from continuously hitting snooze on our alarms.
From our experiences, we noticed that any change in our resting environment could have an impact not only the quality of sleep but also how we wake up. We would wake up to loud noises outside of our rooms such as garbage trucks, snow plows, first responders, sounds of people, bird sounds, etc. Furthermore if the sound is really loud, in the case of a snow plow, it could cause vibration shaking items in the room such as small items or even the bed itself. We noticed lights as well played a role in waking us up as well from flashing lights from vehicles or natural lighting.
Ideation
Vibration - Snow Plow
Sounds - Siren
Lighting - Natural Sunlight
Aim, Objectives and User’s Somatic Experiences
We wanted to implement a two piece system, an alarm clock and a mobile application. The focus with having the two interconnected products that perform best when coinciding with one another for max effectivity. There is a possibility for the products to be used individually as well. We all were blown away by Apple’s ecosystem that we wanted to take inspiration from them in how they effectively are interconnected with one another all while still being its own individual product.
Our goal with the two piece system is to engage with the user’s somatic senses, to which it assists with waking up the user through enhanced visual, auditory, and touch elements. We wanted to utilize these somatic experiences to create a tool for users to wake up in a way that feels natural and seamless way to effectively way up the user of the tool.
It is important to have good quality of sleep and we found out that there are sleep cycles ranging from deep sleep to lightest sleep phase. It is most effective to be woken up during the lightest sleep phase, being woken up while still in deep sleep is one of the factors that cause us to still be tired when waking up. We propose the idea of a dynamic alarm system tracking the user’s sleep throughout the night to catch them at their lightest sleep phase within a 30 minute window of when they wanted to be awake to seamlessly and effectively wake them up. This would implement the three somatic components of visual, audio, and touch senses. Ideally, there would be three phases as to which the user may either wake up at any phase or keep hitting snooze for a more elevated and intense experience. The visual component is set to mimic the effect of a sunrise. Hence why we decided on the name RISE.
General Testing and Feedback
Candidly after our presentation, we had a very insightful conversation with our peers where our product was able to resonate with them and open up about their experiences trying various methods of waking up. The conversation we had with the class was great because we had multiple people participating and peers bouncing ideas off one another. This only further propelled the next phase of our design to enhance the effectiveness of the wake up methods and interconnectivity of the products.
Here was their feedback:
• Task driven wake up method
• Shake the device
•Solving puzzles
• Recreating patterns
• Quiz questions
• Same repetitive wake up method = more prone to hitting snooze
• ex: same task, same sound, same vibration pattern
• Some required an “extreme” wake up method
• Violently loud alarm due to them being deep sleepers
We took all of their feedback and continued to further develop the product to create something more polished to not only refine our product but to show that we hear what they had to say and put it into action. From our first product, on top of our dynamic wake up, we included 3 task driven wake up methods including: shaking the device, quizzes, and solving the pattern, as well as a “surprise me” function recreating a 80’s disco theme with high-BPM and faster colour changing lights for that “violent” or “extreme” element some users need. We were able to recreate this in a mobile application prototype but unfortunately not on the alarm clock itself.
Welcome To Rise
Bluetooth Pairing
Dynamic Wake Up
Task Driven Wake Up Methods
Interact with the prototype!
Scan the QR code to try it on your phone for the best experience!
Smart Clock In Action
Dynamic Wake Up
Sound: calm tempo / low volume
Vibration: Off
Light: Red
Phase 1
Sound: Moderately faster tempo / Medium volume
Vibration: On / Moderately fast tempo
Light: Orange (There were no orange LEDs so we opted for green 😔)
Phase 2
Sound: Fast tempo / loud volume
Vibration: On / Fast tempo
Light: Yellow
Phase 3
Smart Clock Overview
Bluetooth Pairing
Pivoted Ideas
Status: CompletedFrom phone case, to phone attachment, to stand alone alarm clock.
We initially envisioned a device that could be used to amplify the sound, vibration, and lighting component of the phone so we thought a phone case would be best suited. We then came to the realization that with new phones coming out every year and people already own phone cases they already like or prefer more reputable brands, it would be more difficult to compete with leading brands. Having it as a phone case could potentially damage internals due to the external vibration from the device
We then looked into a phone attachment for portability and looked at a phone attachment such as a pop socket. We then came to the realization that given the components we wanted to apply in the device, it could perhaps effect the performance of the phone because of the vibration. We figured the components we would be too big to be used as an attachment.
To address these issues, we ended up creating a smart clock. We felt it was what we were looking for in terms of portability being able to place it wherever the user desires. The idea is that the user would set their phone on one side of the bed and the clock on the opposite side to maximize the experience from multiple angles.
We initially thought that we would connect the two devices via wifi but opted to use bluetooth
We figured that having the devices connect via bluetooth made more sense. Connectivity through wifi might be more difficult due to poor connection being in unfamiliar territory such as camping or and area with not a lot of bandwidth. It may even be more pricier for materials and perhaps even riskier in terms of connectivity. I can recall having a camera with Wifi capabilities but struggled having poor connection or not even being able to connect to it all.