2019
Project Context Personal
Roles Product Design, Embedded Systems Development
Challenge During the time that my relationship was long-distance, I was missing the physical dimension of being in love and the feeling of being in each other’s presence. I wanted to build something myself that could reduce our emotional distance.
Result I designed and built twin lamps that both change colour when being touched, giving a physical dimension to a long-distance relationship.
Tools Arduino, Autodesk Fusion, Laser Cutter
Background
A few years ago, I was living the long-distance relationship life with my girlfriend, which gave us some challenges. Fortunately, we live in a day and age where we can still talk and see each other every day through digital means, but it’s definitely lacking. You cannot touch and there is no feeling of presence. So, I decided to try to tackle it as a designer.
Ideation
Very quickly, I realised I wanted to create two objects that react to each other when touched. I was looking for something simple and subtle, yet meaningful. The device had to give the feeling that the other partner is present, without being too distracting. It had to be a little companion in the room, providing a gentle nudge every now and then.
As a concept, I ended up with a twin lamp that would be connected wirelessly. My idea was to have both lamps change colour when you touch one. This way, the other person becomes aware of your presence. While a lamp is easy to ignore when necessary, this subtle signal allows you to still indicate you are there and thinking about them.
Building
Turning your ideas into reality is where the magic truly happens. I needed to create a control device to manage the connection, touch button, and lights. Additionally, I had to design a custom case to house everything.
For the lamp’s brains, I chose an Arduino Nano IoT. It was a great opportunity to learn programming for such devices, and they perfectly suited the simple requirements of my project. I connected the Arduino board to an LED matrix and coded a simple animation for it. The touch button was a capacitive sensor made from tin foil hidden beneath the plastic top. The wooden and plastic parts were laser-cut. Combining all the components resulted in two lamps that perfectly communicated the new colour from one lamp to another when touched.
Using the Lamp
It is amazing to use a device I imagined and built myself for a real problem. Although, the relationship is not long-distance anymore, the lamps still serve as a nice memory of how we went through this period of our life.
