StickEar: making everyday objects respond to sound

Abstract

This paper presents StickEar, a system consisting of a network of distributed 'Sticker-like' sound-based sensor nodes to propose a means of enabling sound-based interactions on everyday objects. StickEar encapsulates wireless sensor network technology into a form factor that is intuitive to reuse and redeploy. Each StickEar sensor node consists of a miniature sized microphone and speaker to provide sound-based input/output capabilities. We provide a discussion of interaction design space and hardware design space of StickEar that cuts across domains such as remote sound monitoring, remote triggering of sound, autonomous response to sound events, and controlling of digital devices using sound. We implemented three applications to demonstrate the unique interaction capabilities of StickEar.