Control Your Home With A Smart Wall
You will soon be able to control your home with a Smart Wall. No more smart speakers. All it will take is just a few taps on your wall. Disney Research and Carnegie Mellon University researchers have developed a way to make your wall smart. And it costs $20 per meter.
Dubbed The Wall++
The researchers found that they could use conductive paint and a custom sensor board to create electrodes that would turn an ordinary wall into a gesture sensing touchpad and electromagnetic sensor to detect and track electrical devices and appliances.
What The Smart Wall Can Do
The system could potentially monitor activities in rooms. It automatically adjusts light levels when a tv is turned on or off. It can also send an alert when an appliance goes off. People wearing certain electronic devices that emit an electronic signature can be tracked by The Wall++.
Turning an analog surface into a touchpad is not a first for researchers of Carnegie Mellon. Last year they announced a system called Elektrick. This system lets you spray conductive paint onto smooth surfaces to enable touch control.
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More Work For Researchers
There is still much work to do for researchers of The Wall++. It has not been optimized for energy consumption yet. And they are still finding ways to install it easily. It can now be installed by putting a sensor board to your baseboard, but the general functionality seems to be sound.
Transform Your Walls
Walls are great for separating rooms, and help support buildings and shelves. But they are useless when it comes to helping us to control things within our homes and offices. But this could soon be changed.
This research by Carnegie Mellon University researchers prove that it is possible to transform ordinary walls. They may be turned into smart walls which respond to swipes and taps or even gestures. This is to help you control your appliances, video games, and all manner of smart home devices.
So get ready to stop yelling at Alexa and prepare to start smacking your walls. Let us just hope that neighbors will not wonder what the commotion is all about and call for help.
