Cuddle Weather

"CUDDLE WEATHER" COMBINING TECHNOLOGIES AND TEXTILES FOR THE SMART HOME

The objective for this study is: How can technology in combination with textiles improve the experience of parents taking their children out? The idea of a device resulting from this study is “Cuddle Weather “, which describes a toy used by children. It presents the weather data of the day visually and audibly.

Problem

Regarding these results of the interviews and observations of this study, there were three key challenges carved out.

  • Personal belongings for the children play an important role during the heading out process.

  • Unexpected events can happen to turn into a daily routine.

  • Rituals between parents and children are important interactions which are very effective.

Solution

Summarized, the weather conditions play an important role regarding the clothes for the children. The parents check the weather in different ways. During the checking process, parents can go through stressed situations while letting their children alone or spending time on the smartphone while the children are unwilling to participate in the dressing up process. Most of the time they need something to get their child’s attention and distract them. Parents sometimes must put a lot of time and effort to convince the children during the process of packing and dressing up before going out. Hence, it is essential to adequately deliver the daily weather information to not only parents, but also children for educational reasons.

Tools
  • Arduino
  • Miro

 

Team
  • 3 Creator
  • 1 Professor assistant
  • 1 Professor
My Role
  • Research
  • Create prototype
  • Special project
Timeline
  • Overall: 5 months
  • Research +weekly tasks: 3 months
  • Prototype: 4 weeks
Design Process
Research

Academic research shows that the combination of textiles and technology are developed nowadays to enhance human experience in the domestic area. Smart homes seem like remote, digital and cold objects because they are made of glass, metal and plastic interfaces. Recently, new furniture was introduced and it was an opening between electronic devices, suppleness, and softness of textiles in the home environment. Therefore, there are several textiles combined with technology around people being used at home as furniture or different purposes.

Interviews

This research continued with interview and observation procedures to collect the desired data. Four families with kids younger than 5 years were interested to take part in this study.

As results of the interviews and observations, there were three key findings .

  1. Personal belongings for the children play an important role during the heading out process.

  2. Unexpected events can happen to turn into a daily routine.

  3. Rituals between parents and children are important interactions which are very effective.

Sketches and Implementation

After the key points of the design were defined by thematic analysis, sketches were made to develop all kinds of possibilities.

A projection technique was the first idea for the design to distract children with an ambient background animation and sound. The next step was to design the pattern of daily weather. The patterns include Sunrays, Clouds, Raindrops and Snowflakes to deliver information of four weather scenarios. As for the format of current temperature information, different colors of LED represent different temperature ranges. The general temperature map that people commonly access to defines the colors of the LED. For instance, blue represents cold temperature and red represents hot temperature.

Prototype

The idea of “Cuddle Weather” was to find a toy, which combines textiles with technology and is used in a home environment. The technology part includes, LED light bulbs, Servo motor, Arduino board, tactile button and power bank. The prototype has both a technological and textile part. It is not limited to be just used at the home environment.

Evaluation

This evaluation was carried out in three families who were already participants in the research study. While all the participating children were interested in the toy and curious about the moving pattern and the sounds, the opinion of the parents were a little different. Some didn’t like the Prototype and idea because it would be unnecessary for their situation and for some the prototype doesn’t offer a lot of functionalities. All the family mentioned, that the idea of having a device that is used as a ritual is a good idea.

Next steps

The ideal concept of the design is only partially realized at the moment, a better form of technical solution can still be reached. For example, the access of weather data online has not yet been combined into the current prototype. Usage of 360-degree servo motor will be significant which supports angle control.