Saying ‘I Love You’ with the Internet of Things

Israeli design student Daniel Sher has developed a trilogy of creations that can transmit silent gestures between loved ones.

Using an Atmel based Arduino platform for all three devices, Sher has utilized the Internet of Things to develop a means for loved ones to communicate from afar. With the AVR powered boards, the Maker incorporated a series of sensors and wires that allow various physical traits to be measured and relayed.

“A child resting their head on a parent’s shoulder. A squeeze of the thigh during a scary movie. These silent gestures are are a critical part of the language of love, but no words, or even emoji, can properly capture them,” Wired‘s Joseph Flaherty points out.

“In the beginning I tried recreating the feeling of warmth and pressure we get when we touch each other, I soon found out there are projects who try to do just that, and most of them kinda suck,” Sher explains when asked about previous innovations, such as a robot that transmits physical kisses and a vest that can send hugs via Wi-Fi. Sher’s professor helped clarify the problem with this type of approach saying, “Touch is not your objective, touch is only the way we express emotions when we are close.”

Keeping that advice in mind, the Maker’s items are all designed using images that convey a personal, and of course, intimate feel. One of the items is draped in silk, while the other is built out of a worn dark walnut wood. In practice, these surfaces emit certain passionate emotions within users.

The first item, entitled “I’m With You,” transmits heartbeats across geographic distances using origami-like pine cones. The creation is split between two loved ones, and when one of the users holds a sensor in their palm or on their heart, a glowing orb held by the other partner begins to swell. How heartwarming.

The second, and currently unnamed, link begins with a silk flower. The flower is fixed to a pinwheel and when blown, emits bubbles from the distant partner’s portion of the object.

Sher’s final romantic invention, “Sending a Kiss,” also includes a flower. A flower, enclosed within a glass case can alert loved ones when another has sent them a kiss. How you ask? The flower’s casing only allows a slim path of air in, when air is intentionally blown through; the sensor within the flower relays a message to the distant pairing. The other end of the pairing features an origami butterfly, whose wings flutter when a kiss is sensed.

“This is what the Internet of Things would look like in a Jane Austen novel,” Flaherty joked.

Can the Internet of Things become a means for us to display our emotions digitally across large distances? Time will only tell, but with innovators like Daniel hard at work, it sure does seem likely. Who knew a few Arduinos could help show so much love?