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SensorTune: a mobile auditory interface for DIY wireless sensor networks

Published: 10 April 2010 Publication History

Abstract

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) allow the monitoring of activity or environmental conditions over a large area, from homes to industrial plants, from agriculture fields to forests and glaciers. They can support a variety of applications, from assisted living to natural disaster prevention. WSNs can, however, be challenging to setup and maintain, reducing the potential for real-world adoption. To address this limitation, this paper introduces SensorTune, a novel mobile interface to support non-expert users in iteratively setting up a WSN. SensorTune uses non-speech audio to present to its users information regarding the connectivity of the network they are setting up, allowing them to decide how to extend it. To simplify the interpretation of the data presented, the system adopts the metaphor of tuning a consumer analog radio, a very common and well known operation. A user study was conducted in which 20 subjects setup real multi-hop networks inside a large building using a limited number of wireless nodes. Subjects repeated the task with SensorTune and with a comparable mobile GUI interface. Experimental results show a statistically significant difference in the task completion time and a clear preference of users for the auditory interface.

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    CHI '10: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
    April 2010
    2690 pages
    ISBN:9781605589299
    DOI:10.1145/1753326
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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    Published: 10 April 2010

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    Author Tags

    1. mobile hci
    2. network deployment
    3. sonification
    4. user study
    5. wireless sensor network

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    • (2022)Designing Tools and Interfaces for Ecological Restoration: An Investigation into the Opportunities and Constraints for Technological InterventionsProceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3491102.3517664(1-17)Online publication date: 29-Apr-2022
    • (2020)A context-aware system using mobile applications and beacons for on-premise security environmentsJournal of Ambient Intelligence and Humanized Computing10.1007/s12652-020-01906-2Online publication date: 20-Apr-2020
    • (2016)Evaluating a sound-enhanced intrusion detection system to identify network congestion2016 24th Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation (MED)10.1109/MED.2016.7535875(1325-1330)Online publication date: Jun-2016
    • (2015)Connecting the things to the internetProceedings of the 2015 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing10.1145/2750858.2807535(767-778)Online publication date: 7-Sep-2015
    • (2014)MC2ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks10.1145/250985610:3(1-30)Online publication date: 6-May-2014
    • (2013)Internet of thingsProceedings of the 25th Australian Computer-Human Interaction Conference: Augmentation, Application, Innovation, Collaboration10.1145/2541016.2541048(335-344)Online publication date: 25-Nov-2013
    • (2011)Human-Centered Design for DevelopmentInternational Journal of Mobile Human Computer Interaction10.4018/jmhci.20110701013:3(1-13)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2011

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