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Peek-a-boo
Connecting working parents with
their babies
for Hitachi
The aim of
this two week workshop was to explore and design devices,
applications or interfaces, which will allow people to interact with
video information in shared environments.
my team chose the
surveillance in the home environment. Our goal was to design a
product which would enhance the interaction between parents working
away from home and their loved ones.
initially we have started
with market research, by looking at surveillance products that are
currently available on the market; baby monitors, nanny cams. None
of the products currently available were reachable from outside of
the house and they also disregarded the privacy of the
nanny/caretaker. The product needed to be for monitoring the baby
and protecting the privacy of the household at the same time. We
chose to embed the webcam in a mobile which could be placed on top
of baby's cradle, where the caretaker would put the baby on a
request from the parent. This way, while the baby is visible to
parents, nanny's privacy is protected.
Peek-a-boo has an embedded
microphone and two speakers which will enrich the two way
communication, while the parent can talk with the baby, he/she can
also hear the baby. The parent will reach Peek-a-boo website with a
password protected account, via computer or mobile phone. Then
he/she can choose to view the webcam stream, and while watching the
baby, can make the mobile move to play with the baby and can talk to
the baby. Other options website provides are saving the stream or
still images into albums, sharing this data with friends, customized
calendar for important dates for the baby(vaccination, regular
checks, etc.), essential information for parents like numbers to
doctors, current health issues and other news.
By the help of our
supervisors, we managed to make a working prototype by the end of
second week with a flash interface on the web that could be used to
monitor a webcam and turn the mobile on as well as using the
speakers and microphone.
More information regarding project can
be found on:
Applied Dreams website
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