Wally

Inspiration

Up to now IoT devices each have individual interfaces for operation which makes the interaction cumbersome and prevents higher adoption rates. We need an integrated operation system to act as a HUB for all of these devices.

The ideal place for such a center HUB interface is simply the residents’ wall with a simple intuitive interface. Contrary to smartphones this allows all family members to interact with the IoT in a collaborative way.

Wally shows an interactive projection of your IoT devices on your wall and allows you to interact with them using the Wally Ring - which is very simple small hardware - allows to get closer to the controlled objects themselves again. No VR glasses or big remote controls are necessary and the interface to the object is the object itself.

How I built it

We used only very simple hardware: an IR led and an xbee powered button for the interaction. The tracing is done by an IR camera and opencv. The actual user interface is rendered by unity.

Challenges I ran into

Under difficult lightning conditions tracking objects is difficult. But we managed to get it working quite reliably. Furthermore, we use quite a broad software stack therefore we learned about interconnecting different ecosystems to each other effectively.