IoT communicator: A physical interface for expressing situational info of an IoT system

The Internet of Things and smart products are becoming ubiquitous in people's everyday lives. However, they rarely provide situational information to facilitate direct interactions. Users often need to check mobile devices to know the system's status. To improve user experience, we developed a communicator component that could be attached to any IoT devices. It consists of a low-cost LED and speaker. We applied Disney's animation principles to design light behaviors and musical soundscapes to convey meaningful messages. The result of our user study showed that when only the lights were provided, most users could explain the system's intention correctly. With the acoustic accompaniments, participants could better perceive the presence of devices. In this adjunct paper, we summarize our research and describe the demonstration settings for the conference. The details of the study could be found in the full paper.