Title：OTOMADO
Displayed Name：Kyoto University Otomado Club
| Concept / Overview |
|---|
| You know how you can kind of sense the presence of your neighbor? On most days, you think... "Sounds like the neighbor is out today" or "Sounds like the neighbor is having a party." Just knowing this can give you a sense of warmth and connection. Well, OTOMADO is a small decorative window that conveys the daily lives of friends and family that live far away, so that feels like they live next door. |
Behind the idea
You know how you can kind of sense the presence of your neighbor?
On most days, you think... "Sounds like the neighbor is out today" or "Sounds like the neighbor is having a party." Just knowing this can give you a sense of warmth and connection.
Well, OTOMADO is a small decorative window that conveys the daily lives of friends and family that live far away, so that feels like they live next door.
Usage of OTOMADO is very easy. Just attach the two paired OTOMADO windows to a wall in your respective homes.
That's all you need to do. Then OTOMADO will connect your room to the room of your favorite person!
The brightness of each room and movement of people in the room are reflected in the light beaming from the OTOMADO window. The OTOMADO light continually glows, flows, and changes color.
Changes in the corresponding windows will be a catalyst to cherish each other, and at the same time it will let you know you that the person on the other end is well and enjoying daily life.
When the window rattles a little, it means the person on the other end is peeping in.
Gently open the window pane to connect to your friend or family member. You can now hear each other's voice and and feel as if you are just calling through the window to next door!
We created OTOMADO envisioning a magical window that brings together people who must live apart, such as grandparents or even dads temporarily stationed to other locations.
Demo video
Explanation, source
OTOMADOs are window-like communication devices placed between you and your loved ones to deliver active signs of daily life.
For this prototyping we used GR-COTTON and Raspberry Pi Model 3+. GR-COTTON reads various sensor data attached to the window-like box. Raspberry Pi 3+ in the box exchanges data with the paired window.
GR-COTTON checks the opening and closing of the window with a lead sensor, detects the movement of the person around the window with an ultrasonic distance measuring sensor, and measures the brightness of the room with the illuminance sensor. Raspberry Pi acquires weather information by passing the geographical information of latitude and longitude acquired with Google Geolocation API to OpenWeatherMap API.
Raspberry Pi 3 receives information from the paired window through TCP communications. Then, the Pi controls GR-Cotton to turn on/off full-color LEDs with various blinking patterns and colors depending on the state at the other end. These pretty color and hue changes indicate the activity at the other end.
We also implemented a voice call function on the Pi by Python, enabling two parties to talk in real time. In the Python program, we added a transmission/reception and recording/play-back function of voice data with UDP multithreaded communications. Currently, the serial communication between Raspberry Pi 3 and GR-COTTON is unstable, but we will fix it before the final selection.
For crafting this prototype, we spent a lot of time making the decorative casing. We used laminated wood cut with a laser cutter for the window, which is the most essential part of the device. We used Fusion 360 and a 3D printer to make other special parts.
GR-COTTON source codes
Raspberry Pi source codes
3D print data
GR Design Contest Japan 2017 Finalist
