LumiTouch

LumiTouch is a project that explores emotional communication. The project looks at an always-on low-bandwidth, passive communication as an alternative to the current direction of high-bandwidth, high attention communication devices. LumiTouch is a digitally augmented picture frame that conveys touch and presence in the form of light. LumiTouch come as pairs. When one person is in front of their frame, the remote frame will light subtly to show that the other person is present. By squeezing different parts of the frame, colors can be sent over a TCP/IP connection to the other frame. People can create and send color compositions, or collaboratively send color compositions to be displayed on the LumiTouches in real-time. The idea is to enable communication to the other person that "you're there" and that "you're thinking of them".