At the recent Good Design Expo 2011 we had a chance to play with the AirSketcher, a robotic electric fan designed by Keita Watanabe.
In the center of the fan is a camera that can read different patterns printed on cards. In order to keep the target person constantly cool as they move about the room, the fan aligns itself by scanning for patterns it recognizes. When there is no pattern to be seen, it is busy looking around, and thus cooling the room in a random way, but locks on once it finds what it’s looking for.
Additionally, the patterns themselves can control different basic functions. Along with gestures, it’s possible to control fan position, speed, and turn it on and off.
While it now uses printed patterns, we could soon be looking at intelligent home appliances that read faces, knowing exactly how you like the wind to blow, or perhaps cooking your toast exactly right. Now that the tech-savvy are acquainted with the idea of using gestures to interact with devices, our future home life could be relatively button-free.
Post a Comment