ITP Thesis Week 2009
Monday, May 4 - Friday, May 8

kokoro

Anaid Gomez Ortigoza

Control your music with your heartbeat.

http://anaiid.com/kokoro



You step out of the house for some exercise, a jog, walk or maybe something more extreme. Music is an important part of this. You put on your favorite sports music playlist in your device of choice. The music starts and keeps going perfectly fine, and you realize that you’d like to hear another song so you move it to the next. Not that big a problem, until you decide to do this action say 10 times in 20 minutes. And your favorite song still doesnt come on, as you reach for the door back into your house, it finally does and then you have to stop the device and go on with your day.

Music storage is currently done very well by different brands and devices. The controls still have room for improvement. The so called “universal design” principles help make it easy for most people in most situations. I’d like to address one particular situation and type of people: those who prefer to not have to change the music manually in the middle of their exercise or relaxing activity. I’m proposing a new interface to control the music player that attempts to make the music be more in sync with the body and react to what happens to it, when the situation allows for this.

I also see an application for this in relaxation techniques, yoga and anti-stress treatments, where the music player is able to detect a change in the body and through music, help bring it back to equilibrium.

Background
snowboarding jackets with soft switches.
nike +
fashioning technology
switch craft
fashionable technology
polar training equipment and sensors
heartbeat app for iphone (http://projects.tynsoe.org/en/heartbeat/)

Audience
people into sports who enjoy listening to music.

User Scenario
a person wears this device, they connect their music player to kokoro, it acts as a bridge between the heart and the music player, constantly informing the music player of any recent changes in heart rate. they start to work out in the way they prefer (running, cycling, snowboarding). As their heat rate changes, the music changes to be better suited for the moment.

Implementation
This is a two piece system. One is the heart rate strap by Polar. This can be integrated in a sports bra or men's cardio shirt or simply be a plastic strap that goes around the waist. Kokoro is an iPod accessory that reads the heart rate data wirelessly and tells the music player what to play next.