Using bluetooth device names to support interaction in smart environments

Abstract

An increasing trend in mobile and pervasive computing is the augmentation of everyday public spaces with local computation -leading to so called smart environments. However, there are no well accepted techniques for supporting spontaneous interaction between mobile users and these smart environments, though a wide range of techniques have been explored ranging from gesture recognition to downloading applications to a user's phone. In this paper we explore an approach to supporting such interaction based on the use of Bluetooth Device (user-friendly) Names as a control channel between users' mobile phones and computational resources in their local environment. Such an approach has many advantages over existing techniques though it is not without limitations. Our work focuses specifically on the use of Device Names to control and customize applications on large public displays in a campus environment. This paper describes our basic approach, a number of applications that we have constructed using this technique and the results of our evaluation work which has included a range of user studies and field trials. The paper concludes with an assessment of the viability of using our approach for interaction scenarios involving mobile users and computationally rich environments.

Interaction techniques for creating and exchanging content with public displays

“…Transparent markers embedded on the display allow any camera-enabled device to interact with the display [22]. Several dedicated mobile apps have been developed which make use of different connectivity options such as Bluetooth, WiFi, SMS and MMS [12,38]. Schmidt et al enable cross-device interaction [34].…”

Information to Go: Exploring In-Situ Information Pick-Up “In the Wild”

“…Continuous scanning of Bluetooth devices has been utilized as presence information [12,24], and along with the friendly name of a device was used to create instant places, which are identities of users in the same space visualized on a public display. The idea of using Bluetooth friendly names as a control channel was developed further in [8], where users could request several different services on public displays in a campus setting using command parameters in their Bluetooth friendly names.…”

“…This system draws inspiration from much of the work described above. Specifically, this work is partly inspired by findings which suggest that users are happy to download files from public displays [7], as well as using proximity based technologies to infer the presence of users [8,15]. In addition, it builds on the fact that displays are well suited for information pickup, and also attempts to capitalize on the honeypot phenomenon to entice further users to use the system.…”

Selection and Control of Applications in Pervasive Displays

“…Researchers in the area of public displays have largely investigated how to appropriate displays by creating rich interactive applications and services [4][5] [6]. Displays as multi-user and shared resources have also been explored mainly from two perspectives: time based queuing [7] and explicit [8] or implicit space partitioning [9].…”