Interactions Concept: Tangible Alarms Through NFC

While at MWC a couple months ago I got a chance to meet up with the winners of Nokia’s 3D printing challenge; in case you missed it the idea was to make the most “useful” 3D printed shell for the Lumia 820. One of the winners was Victor, whose concept was 3D printing your house key into the back of the phone for quick and easy access; his winning design was made into an actual product.

*You might have spotted Victor in our race across Barcelona treasure hunt

Victor shared his latest idea with me the other day, and I thought you guys would like to see it; the concept is for a tangible alarm clock on phones, by interacting with a “plate” through NFC, but rather than reading about it, check out the video demo below:

Using NFC-technology this Tangible Alarm clock eliminates the need for touch screen interaction in the morning.

Basically the plate beneath it changes the phone’s response depending on where it’s positioned, and changes the reaction accordingly; I personally thought it was a really cool concept, and would love to have this sort of thing in my future devices. However I couldn’t help but get bothered over the fact that the girl in the demo had to plug-in her phone, slap some wireless charging on this and you’d have an instant hit! In fact it’s almost the next logical step of progression after making wireless charging plates; make the plate even more useful! It does bring back some memories of flip to silence on the good ‘ol N8 (which is rumored to be making a comeback soon in PR2.0)

This is the sort of innovation that the mobile world could really use, rather than fighting over meaningless specs I think the little things like this make the bigger difference, where it’s obvious that the thought process behind it is to simply make your life easier.

Check out some more images and projects over at Victor’s site:

http://objectsandinteractions.com/2013/04/18/542/

Category: Nokia