This paper describes a case study wherein we realized a novel remote shopping experience by using T-Leap, a wearable telepresence system with an integrated 360° camera, to connect a supermarket in the city center with elderly participants living far from the store. The participants of our case study operated T-Leap via a PC/tablet and remotely joined a surrogate shopper to explore the supermarket and shop for products. In this study, we revealed that a real-time 360° view provides opportunities for accidental, serendipitous purchasing activities, despite being difficult for the elderly participants to control. Reflecting on our findings, we discuss the design of future remote shopping services from an HCI perspective. Our design implications will contribute to assisting people who have difficulties regularly shopping for their daily needs, like our participants, have rich, in-store experiences that have never been provided by existing online shopping services.

Outdoor activities, such as traveling and sightseeing, become challenging to realize when individuals are geographically distant. This paper introduces Syn-Leap, a symmetrical wearable telepresence system designed to allow multiple users to explore outdoor settings while mutually sharing their environments. With Syn-Leap, users wear a 360° camera and AR glasses, allowing them to share their environment through video streaming while simultaneously viewing the videos of other users while walking outdoors. To investigate the experiences and communication generated by this system, we conducted a field study in Kyoto, Japan, focusing on tourism scenarios. The results revealed that participants could achieve a sense of walking together by seamlessly switching between exploring their own environment and viewing the video feeds of other users, occasionally overlaying the AR content from other users onto their own environment.

Funerals are irreplaceable events, especially for bereaved family members and relatives. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has prevented many people worldwide from attending their loved ones’ funerals. The authors had the opportunity to assist one family faced with this predicament by webcasting and recording funeral rites held near Tokyo in June, 2020. Using our original 360-degree Telepresence system and smartphones running Zoom, we enabled the deceased’s elder siblings to remotely attend the funeral and did our utmost to make them feel present in the funeral hall. Despite the webcasting via Zoom contributing more to their remote attendances than our system, we discovered thoughtful findings which could be useful for designing remote funeral attendances. From the findings, we also discuss how HCI designers can contribute to this highly sensitive issue, weaving together knowledge from various domains including techno-spiritual practices, thanato-sensitive designs; and other religious and cultural aspects related to death rituals.

This paper describes a field study conducted with our system, T-Leap, a telepresence system connecting one person (the Viewer), situated indoors, with multiple destinations (the Nodes), that roam outdoors. Here, each Node is a person wearing a module that includes a 360-degree camera and a microphone-speaker. Through our study, we demonstrate that T-Leap enables the Viewer to perform various interactions with the Nodes including being helped by them, collaborating with them, and guiding them. These interactions were demonstrated through three studies completing different tasks: 1) Nodes purchasing souvenirs for the Viewer, 2) Nodes finding objects in the park, and 3) Viewer guiding Nodes to purchase things. The studies were primarily conducted with Taiwanese locals and Japanese visitors in Taipei. Throughout the studies, we found that T-Leap worked especially well for mediating communication between a Viewer with local knowledge acting as a guide and several Nodes who were being guided. To conclude the paper, we broadly discuss our findings, the lessons we learned from our field study, and present recommendations for the future development of mobile and wearable telepresence systems.