NFC BASED REMOTE CONTROL OF SERVICES FOR INTERACTIVE SPACES

Master’s ThesisIván Sánchez Milara

WHAT?

REACHeS• REACHeS platform:

– Enables the creation of Interactive Spaces– Permits a user to control services and

resources (displays and speakers) by using physical user interfaces.

– NFC technology is the ”bridge” between the digital and virtual world. By touching NFC tags located in users’ environment using their NFC enabled mobile phone users can:• Start a service• Command a service• Select a resource• Interact with a resource

WHY?

Smart spaces

• Environments that tries to predict user intentions and needs based on sensed data.– Implicit interaction

• Problem: – Human comunication is very complex– Wrong decisions by the system implies

user’s frustation and bad UX. • User does not feel in control of the interaction

Interactive Spaces• Environments in which:

– Users control services and resources by interacting with objects in the environments• TUIs or PUIs

– User is in control of interaction: system does not initate any task without explicit user intervention

• Research questions:– Is it possible to build more user-centered

pervasive computer environments using Interactive Spaces? How?

– Which are the best technologies and interaction methods for Interactive Spaces

HOW?

REACHeS

• REACHeS allows the quick creation of Interactive Spaces– Communicates users, services and

resources (displays and speakers)• REACHeS is a gateway between users’ mobile

clients and the rest of the Interactive Space.– Allows multiple interaction methods

• In this Master’s Thesis the focus is on NFC– Provides different services such as

resource allocation, session control, client installation via OT, content management.

REACHeS scenario

REACHeS architecture

REACHeS’ interaction modes using NFC

• Starting a service– Tag contains the service name,

information for the resource allocation system and other particular parameters.

• Controlling a service– Tag contains commands and

parameters.• Selecting devices

– The tag contains the device id and the device type

• Transferring content to resources– The tag contains the device id

RESULTS

REACHeS’ applications

Usability tests• Touch & Control versus

traditional keypad control

• Gesture recognition vs. traditional keypad control

• Speech and gesture recognition vs. Touch & Control

• Resource allocation processes

PHONE GUI

TOUCH & CONTROL

Reliability 8,1 8,6Easiness 8,7 9,4Speed 6,8 7,6Intuitiveness 8,4 9,2Cognitive load 8,2 8,8Average UX 8,3 8,6

•Better learnability, speed, reliabilty and intuitiviness

•Similar task execution time

•Better UX than initial user expectance

•Much better task execution time and learnability

•Different environments => different allocation processes

•Automatic method is the worst option

Main test results

• NFC interaction is easy to use and very intuitive.

• Main visual feedback in external displays– Phone’s display only when there is no

external display available– Phone’s haptic and audio feedback for

complementary feedback• NFC cannot be used to build real time

applications.– NFC produces too much delay

Main REACHeS problems

• Latency

• Scalability

Average time (ms) Start

command

Average time (ms)

Others command

Round trip time (internal service)

3369 (σ = 2620)

1230 (σ = 705)

REACHeS Execution time (internal service)

1265 10

Service Execution time (internal service)

1095 2

Display update time (internal service)

1398 171

Effective time (internal service)

3082 786

CONCLUSION

Conclusion

• The main contributions are: 1. REACHeS a server platform to build

Interactive Spaces2. Study of different interaction methods

based on NFC3. Example applications and usability tests4. Theoretical background about Interactive

Spaces, its interaction methods and technologies