Augmented reality as an enabling factor for the Internet of Things

As the vision of a world of networked smart objects moves from a futuristic idea by visionary researchers to an emerging reality that shapes the cities of the future around the world a number of issues arise. Novel approaches such as those of ubiquitous computing have proven the technological feasibility of that Internet of Things, but they still lack a shared, robust and unquestionable answer on how to effectively connect smart environments and people. Traditional interaction technologies have shown until today poor capabilities to provide a rich user experience in high-density smart environments. Such environments require of an increased level of tangibility for the points of interests with no compromise of the overall usability. This position paper is aimed to support the idea of Augmented Reality as the key tool to build user interfaces fitting the specific interaction requirements of the Internet of Things.