Modern, globalized lifestyles make physical separation of family members an inevitable part of life. Due to changes in routines and social roles, remaining connected to distant loved ones is challenging and adversely affects psychological well-being. To support relatedness, we created FamilyFlower, an artificial flower aimed at fostering a connection between remote households by bringing awareness of everyday activities and offering basic expressivity. In its environment, each device detects human presence, movement, sound, and touch. In the remote household, the paired prototype responds by respectively opening the flower bud, actuating the stem, altering the seeds’ color, and dispensing a fragrance. In a 2-week study of deployment between 2 family members, we collected initial impressions of our prototype, and identified key aspects our system could support in future research. From our results, we see that FamilyFlower supports an awareness of ongoing activities in a distant household and built a feeling of connectedness.

Over recent decades, with the fast growth of urbanization, new health-related issues have resulted from the changed lifestyles. People have become more sedentary. They suffer from fully-packed calendars, which does not give them enough time to care for their physical and psychological well-being. While this is a growing challenge, advancements made in internet of things (IoT) devices in the private context offer the chance to develop applications that tackle these issues. While many such applications have been envisioned, the user’s views and requirements for them remain unclear. To better understand this, we conducted a literature review in which we identified the four most common health-related scenarios in which such technologies are used. Next, we conducted an online survey (N=80), in which participants envisioned how smart home devices could realize these scenarios. Based on the results, we derive design implications that show that users value a high degree of customization and the ability to select a specific automation level through an all-in-one, easy-to-use platform.

In this paper we present Slackliner, an interactive slackline training assistant which features a life-size projection, skeleton tracking and real-time feedback. As in other sports, proper training leads to a faster buildup of skill and lessens the risk for injuries. We chose a set of exercises from slackline literature and implemented an interactive trainer which guides the user through the exercises and gives feedback if the exercise was executed correctly.

Wearable sports technology such as fitness trackers, smart watches or heart rate sensors has become ubiquitous in our everyday lives. This technology enables even recreational athletes to keep track of their workouts in a comprehensive manner. Besides the general assumption that this technology improves motivation to exercise more often, it also enables the athlete to get a better understanding of her current fitness level. However, current technology is mainly focussed on (quantifiable) performance indicators such as mileage, pace, cadence, watts, heart rate, etc.

Being in nature is typically regarded to be calming, relaxing and purifying. When in nature, people often seek to be mobile through physical activity such as hiking. But also, nature provides an opportunity for meditative, mindful or inspiring experiences remote from urban everyday life. Mobile Technologies such as sports tracking technologies, electronic tourist guides, mobile phone integrated cameras and omnipresent social media access, have potential to both enhance and disrupt a user's interaction with and experience of nature. This MobileHCI workshop follows on from the first successful NatureCHI workshop by focusing on the challenges associated with the design of mobile technologies that support unobtrusive interaction in nature.

Today, ambitioned amateur athletes often do not have access to professional coaching but still invest great effort in becoming faster runners. Apart from a pure increase in the quantitative training load, a change of the running technique, e.g. transitioning from heel striking to fore- or midfoot running, can be highly effective and usually prevents knee-related injuries.

Today, ambitious amateur athletes often do not have access to professional coaching but still invest great effort in becoming faster runners. Apart from a pure increase in the quantitative training load, a change of the running technique, e.g. transitioning from heel striking to mid-/forefoot running, can be highly effective and usually prevents knee-related injuries.

Rock climbing involves complex movements and therefore requires guidance when acquiring a new technique. The classic approach is mimicking the movements of a more experienced climber. However, the trainee has to remember every nuance of the climb, since the sequence of movements cannot be performed in parallel to the experienced climber. As a solution to this problem, we present a video recording and replay system for climbing. The replay component allows for different in-situ video feedback methods. We investigated the video feedback component of the system by studying two example visualization techniques, i.e. a life-sized in-place projection and a real-time third-person view of the climber, augmented by a video showing a successful ascent. The latter is presented to the user on both Google Glass and a projected display. The results indicate that a life-sized projection was perceived as easiest to follow, while most of the climbers had problems with the context switches between the augmented video and the climbing wall. These findings can aid in the design of assistance systems that teach complex movements.

Wearable sports devices like GPS watches and heart rate monitors are ubiquitous in sports like running or road cycling and enable the users to receive real-time performance feedback. Although rock climbing is a trending sport, there are little to no consumer electronics available to support rock climbing training during exercise. In this paper, we investigated the acceptance and appropriateness of wearables in climbing on different body parts. Based on an online survey with 54 climbers, we designed a wearable device and conducted a perception study with 12 participants in a climbing gym. Using vibro-tactile, audible, and visual cues while climbing an easy route and a hard route, requiring high physical and cognitive load, we found that the most suited notification channel is sound, directly followed by vibro-tactile output. Light has been found to be inappropriate for the use in the sport of climbing.

Today, sports and activity trackers are ubiquitous. Especially runners and cyclists have a variety of possibilities to record and analyze their workouts. In contrast, climbing did not find much attention in consumer electronics and human-computer interaction. If quantified data similar to cycling or running data were available for climbing, several applications would be possible, ranging from simple training diaries to virtual coaches or usage analytics for gym operators. This paper introduces a system that automatically recognizes climbed routes using wrist-worn inertia measurement units (IMUs). This is achieved by extracting features of a recorded ascent and use them as training data for the recognition system. To verify the recognition system, cross-validation methods were applied to a set of ascent recordings that were assessed during a user study with eight climbers in a local climbing gym. The evaluation resulted in a high recognition rate, thus proving that our approach is possible and operational.