Bose Bob

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  Screenshot of Android app

Inspiration

We were inspired by music making hardware such as launchpads and soundboards. We wanted to make an instrument that would help music performers make music and enhance the listening experience with Bose products.

We also wanted to utilize the Bose AR SDK and Bose Frames. We learned about the gyroscope and accelerometer features of the Bose Frames and aimed to program software that utilized these.

What it does

Bose Bob is an Android mobile application built to work with Bose AR products. It is an instrument suited for music producers and music listeners. While wearing the product, move your head in one of four directions to play a sound. The app allows you to change the sounds played and calibrate your device.

How I built it

We built Bose Bob using the Bose AR SDK for Android Studio. Using the Bose Frames, we play tested our program and tried to find the most comfortable head motion for bobbing. We also created a sound manager using the Soundpool API and studied the existing Bose code to create a calibration and connection button.

Challenges I ran into

We had trouble using the accelerometer to determine if the device was being moved quickly. We initially wanted to use the accelerometer to determine how hard we were hitting a threshold, but we later calculated velocity with the gyroscope. After discussing the accelerometer features with Bose employees, we learned that the accelerometer would take too long to implement. In addition, we had some audio latency issues with the Bose Frames as the connection is bluetooth. Lastly, we had difficulties filtering through the documentation for the frames. We found the resources to not be as descriptive for our uses.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

Our team is proud that we were able to track the coordinates of the frames and create sound thresholds for them. In addition, we were happy that we could produce sounds in the app and increase/decrease volume based on how fast we bobbed.

What I learned

First and foremost, we learned how to use the Bose SDK with the Bose Frames. We learned that more physics is required to replicate the feeling of hitting a drum with a simple bob of the head. In addition, we learned about sound players in the Android system and extensive use of black and white colors in the Bose Connect application.

What's next for Bose Bob

In the future, we would want to add the ability to play custom sounds instead of just 8. We would also want to play test Bose Bob more to make the act of bobbing "just right." Lastly, we would have liked to add a visualization or simulation to give users visual feedback.

Built With

• android-studio
• bose-ar-sdk