pushPin : programming stimulus-response coordination among everyday objects using paired physical tags

With the development of inexpensive embedded processing technologies, consumer electronics are getting vivid and smarter than before. Consumers mind sometimes lead to think about connecting devices together to perform a continuous task in their lifestyle. A programmable alarm clock and a human detection module can not only trigger some of your daily routines such as lights, water heater, Washing machine, but also can save energy by turning OFF the devices when you are not present. This smartness can be a benefit to ordinary users only if they can connect, configure and reconfigure everyday objects according to their lifestyle needs with minimum effort. Commercially available systems such as Insteon, X.10 have step in the direction of “smart homes” provides integration of several sensors, actuators and customize the device pairing at the installation stage, but not allowing rapid changes to configuration. Furthermore a re-configuration of existing system will require a significant amount of time. With busy lifestyle, we sometimes see existing home automation systems are sometimes not utilized well in consumers everyday life. Graphical, direct manipulation user interfaces are available for making devices program rapidly, but it is still easier to manipulate physical objects in the real world than it is to interact with virtual objects inside a computer screen. Tangible or graspable user interfaces help bridge the gap between the virtual world and the physical world by allowing us to manipulate digital information directly with our hands. “pushPin Programming” metaphor, an extension of Tangible user interface which resembles the traditional method of connecting devices using wires. We have made wires wireless to reduce the tangling and complexity of having meshes, pairing them using coloured/iconed pins just representing the end of the wires. We provide easy to understand real-time program/reprogram, debugging features built onto the system to help users program their everyday objects without any prior programming knowledge. In this thesis I want to show that pushPin programming is easy to learn, understand, remember, with minimum instructions so that everyday users can easily integrate objects in to their schedule.