SmartTokens are small-sized tangible tokens that can sense multiple types of motion, multiple types of touch/grip, and send input events wirelessly as state-machine transitions. By providing an open platform for embedding basic sensing capabilities within small form-factors, SmartTokens extend the design space of tangible user interfaces. We describe the design and implementation of SmartTokens and illustrate how they can be used in practice by introducing a novel TUI design for event notification and personal task management. Here is all the material required to build and use SmartTokens, from PCB production files to code to use them.

Documentation: Hardware · Software
Extended Material: Figures · PDF of the paper · Bibtex · Slides · Authors and Contact

Bibtex

@inproceedings{ legoc:hal-01211270, TITLE = {{SmartTokens: Embedding Motion and Grip Sensing in Small Tangible Objects}}, AUTHOR = {Le Goc, Mathieu and Dragicevic, Pierre and Huron, Samuel and Boy, Jeremy and Fekete, Jean-Daniel}, URL = {https://hal.inria.fr/hal-01211270}, BOOKTITLE = {{User Interface Software and Technology Symposium}}, ADDRESS = {Charlotte, NC, United States}, ORGANIZATION = {{ACM}}, YEAR = {2015}, MONTH = Nov, DOI = {10.1145/2807442.2807488}, KEYWORDS = {Tangible user interfaces (TUIs) ; Tangible Tokens ; Sensor Network User Interfaces (SNUIs)}, PDF = {https://hal.inria.fr/hal-01211270/file/paper3771.pdf}, HAL_ID = {hal-01211270}, HAL_VERSION = {v1}, }

Slides

*** ADD YOUR SLIDESHARE EMBED CODE HERE ***

Video

Open Source

Road Map

This is a list of the known issues. These will be fixed as soon as possible and added in coming revisions.

Change Log

Coming...

Documentation

Coming...

Design

Hardware

SmartTokens are simple and cost-effective, but smart enough to be used as handles for digital information. SmartTokens allow to make generic, scalable and affordable user interfaces. They embed custom electronics, including touch and motion sensors as well as wireless communication functionalities.

The SmartToken Input Model

This first case is a very simple manipulation of a SmartToken. At the beginning, this one is still without contact. As soon as the user touches the token, it changes state and sends a touch event. Grasping and moving the token lead to a move event. As stopped and released, the token moves back to its initial state and indicates it with several events.

This first case is a very simple manipulation of a SmartToken. At the beginning, this one is still without contact. As soon as the user touches the token, it changes state and sends a touch event. Grasping and moving the token lead to a move event. As stopped and released, the token moves back to its initial state and indicates it with several events.

Use Case

The notification machine consists of a set of SmartToken dispensers that communicate with a personal computer. When an event of interest is received on the computer (e.g., a new calendar event, a bug report or email), a token is released. Different dispensers represent different event types, and SmartTokens accumulate in their respective containers. SmartTokens can be picked up anytime to display event details on the computer screen or to update an event’s status. A SmarToken falls in the wooden container, indicating a blog comment and making a distinctive noise. Touching it makes the title of the comment appears on his screen. Picking up the token and a window pops up showing the entire comment. The SmartToken can be grabbed and sharken to mark the message as important. A red star then appears next to the message. As the token is dropped back into the dispenser, it is unassigned.

Software

Extended Materials

Authors

Mathieu Le Goc
Mathieu Le Goc is currently working on Dynamic Physical Visualisations, and more specifically developping new technologies to augment physicalizations. He is particularly interested in combinations of multiple objects to create physicalizations, like Bertin’s Matrices. Promoting direct manipulations and leveraging human hands capabilities motivate his work, to invent new “beyond desktop” tangible interfaces.

Pierre Dragicevic
Pierre Dragicevic is a Permanent Research Scientist at INRIA. He is interested in how manipulable representations of data can augment human cognition. He is also interested in tracing back the origins of data visualization by examining physical artefacts made throughout history, and in imagining how future humans will interact with data through programmable matter.

Samuel Huron
Samuel Huron is a post doctorate researcher in the Innovis Group (Interactions Lab, Department of Computer Science) at the University of Calgary. He graduated is Phd in 2014 from the university Paris-Saclay in collaboration with INRIA. Before, he was the lead designer of the Institute of research and Innovation of the Pompidou Center.

Jeremy Boy
Jeremy Boy is currently a Research Fellow at the Polytechnic School of Engineering at NYU. With a Graphic Design background, his work mainly focuses on Information Visualization for the People. Most recently, he successfully defended his PhD in May 2015.

Jean Daniel Fekete
Jean-Daniel Fekete is Senior Research Scientist (DR1) at INRIA. He received his PhD in Computer Science in 1996 from Université Paris-Sud. From 1997 to 2001, he joined the Graphic Design group at the Ecole des Mines de Nantes that he led from 2000 to 2001. He was then invited to join the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory at the University of Maryland in the USA for one year. He was recruited by INRIA in 2002 as a confirmed researcher and became Senior Research Scientist in 2006. He is the Scientific Leader of the INRIA Project Team AVIZ that he founded in 2007.

SmartTokens: Embedding Motion and Grip Sensing in Small Tangible Objects by M. LeGoc, P. Dragicevic, S. Huron, J. Boy, J-D Fekete. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.