Tags: rich interaction, music player, Arduino, React, Spotfiy API, meta data, IoT.

FloOow is a music player that plays Spotify songs from a family playlist. It has a restricted amount of tangible controls and information, to invite interaction with the music that other family members add to the playlist. Three holes in the front of the device show the album art of the next (left), current (middle), & previous (right) songs. Pressing on the outer artworks plays the selected song. The ring around the middle circle rotates when music is playing and can be physically manipulated to stop the music, continue playback, or scroll through the song. The artworks invite people to ask each other what song was, is, or will play next; and the ring enables easy access to parts of the song. In the background, FloOow analyzes the meta data of the songs in the playlist with the help of the Spotify API. From this data it calculates the mood in the house and notifies the smart lighting system to turn on a lighting setting that fits the music mood.

Next to being a music player, FloOow explores how Internet-connected devices in the home can be designed within the embodied and rich interaction design paradigms. These paradigms aim to design interactive technologies that add sensory richness and/or beauty to our lives through the interactions we have with technologies. Within this paradigm, Internet-connectivity (IoT) surfaces a challenge: systems of IoT devices grow dynamically over time, so how can the meanings and dynamic forms of 'rich' artefacts change accordingly? FloOow's take on this challenge is the sharing of meta-data between 'mood-setting' devices (audio, lighting, television), providing mood-setting suggestions, and interpreting user feedback through user interactions. How would we like to live with devices that try to 'read the air' and intervene in it in our homes? Will such systems of devices give a personality to our home? How would we relate to the individual technologies interwoven in these systems?