Problem Statement:
Long distance couples often face sadness and frustration when their significant others are away. They want to feel the comfort, warmth, and security of their significant other sleeping in the bed beside them.
Outcome
Goal:
Develop a sheet/mattress pad that utilizes sensors on a grid system to detect weight and pressure from one bed (of the pair) to reproduce warmth at the same time for couples who are unintentionally separated. SleepTight would be a convenient tool to use for monitoring the status of one bed (of the pair) and send notifications to the person who is far away from home so that the couple can trust each other based on the information provided by the device. These information include that how many occupants are in the bed; when the user goes to bed and when he/she gets up. The device was designed to strengthen the relationship between separated couples in an ambient way (compared to installing a camera).
Process:
The team first ideate in the context we are going to focus. We choose to focus on how to help people in long distance relationship feel more engaged and connected with each other's lives, while also thinking about the risk of causing trust issues along the way as well as possible tricks in the process that may result in an unhealthy communication and relationships. Under that circumstances, the technology that was intended to help people is actually causing additional troubles, which may make the situation even worst compared to without the technology.
Challenges:
Thinking about the possible technologies can be hard while ideating the risk can even be harder. Challenges include:
- How smart can the future be with the technology development and what could be achieved?
- What could go wrong and how severe the outcome could be?
- How to weight the advantages over the disadvantages？
Reflection:
The intention of using technologies to smarter our everyday life is good. However, it's always possible to play some tricks for counteractions and manipulate the collected data. There's nothing wrong with the technologies, only human's intentions. Smart devices like this which break the limits of time and space by connecting to the internet, for instance, monitoring events and providing feedback can be controversy case by case. Is technology the only way to solve the issue we want to solve? Definitely not, so why couldn't we try something simpler that comes with a lower cost. Just sitting down and talk would sometimes be the better solution.
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