Hi, I am RED

In psychology and communication, the communication between two individual is often referring to an image of two people having their bubble of communication with a different color (one blue, the other red). To be able to create an exchange, they need to adapt their communication to a common color that takes into account their reference.

Behind this visual paradigm, there is an important concept of adaptation of each participant to the others environment (or reference). Despite the common believe, the meaning of each word in a language is specific to each person experience and the basis of the communication is to be able to bridge each experience to a common idea.

When we come to the world of IOT and digital, we can extend this concept to the relation between the person and the environment.
With this title “Hi, I am RED”, the idea is to start with the fact that any person that interact with an environment comes with its own experience and expect the environment to adapt to it. Despite the communication with a human, we are more reluctant to adapt our experience to a digital system to realize an efficient communication.

For many concept of the daily life, we have defined norms that, after a short learning, allow us to interact with systems: red for hot water, green for good information, clockwise to close a bottle ….

However, standards are not all shared by all countries or cultures (like colors for electric wiring) and the learning curve or effort to evolve in a complex environment (like your living room) can be overwarming.

Starting with the idea that the “RED” user come to a “BLUE” system, the system need to have capabilities to bridge its capabilities to the user knowledge. Behind the buzz word of personalization, the real value is to do this with minimum active actions from the user

What does it mean in details? To understand the approach, let’s start with an example.

When Susan starts looking at Facebook on her phone after work, she is looking for a cozy environment that suits her mood. A few minutes later, when she will stand up and start preparing the dinner, she will looks for a clear light in her kitchen.

Bridging the idea of “cozy” to a lighting system of 20 possible sources in the room is a stretch for a classic approach of electricity or even domotics. To realize the connection, several concepts need to be put together as a global system. Each element is not new by itself; the value is created by the combination of the element.

The different elements to put together are:

–          Identity
Who is the user ?

–          Localization
Where is the user ?

–          User knowledge
What does he/she want ?

–          System knowledge
What is the system capable of ?

–          Environment knowledge
What is the layout of the system ?

–          System communication
How can the system interact with the user and have a consistent behavior ?

Identity is the information that will allow linking the user to a unique identifier used later by the system to attach preference information and to customize its own behavior. The identity can be linked directly to an existing user identity (like mail, phone number …) but is most of the time, for environment systems, linked to a physical device related to the user (card, phone, key ring …).

With the evolution of digital, the digital identity of the user will probably evolve to a centralize management (like google identity) and the lighting system will need to be able to interact with it. One of the reason is that the willingness of a user to have a specific identity for a lighting system only is very low

For localization, several protocols allow locate the user around the system:

–          Declarative system (like login on a panel) shall be used only in no other system are available as they only allow a binary localization (there/not there) and are not reliable as they need an explicit action from the user.

–          Long distance proximity system (like Wifi) provide high level localization

–          Medium proximity system (like Bluetooth or GPS) can provide medium quality localization

–          Contact systems (like NFC) provide accurate short term localization

Combining those systems can allow having high level of experience.

For example, with a range of 50/60m, the wifi proximity of the user to the system can be used to light up the external house light or to trigger some devices like the oven.

With a range of 2/5 m, the Bluetooth proximity can be used to light up a room while the user enters it.

With a range of a few mm, the NFC can be used to open the garage door when the user takes the car keys.

For user knowledge, the system needs to consolidate declarative information (from user) and historical data.

Declarative information is the information that have been provided by the user (or by the default configuration) to guide the system behavior. For example, the air conditioning will target a temperature 5 degree less than the external temperature.

Historical information are data coming from the past experience and/or use of the system. For example, Susan is always lowering the temperature to 38 degree independently from any external temperature

Depending on the user, declarative or historical information will drive the behavior of the system.

User knowledge also includes the definition of alias for some system levels. For example, a “cozy” lightning is an average measure of 800 lumens.

The system knowledge is the cumulated information of each element of the system. It encompass the specification of each component (colors available on each light source), the number of instances (number of lights, number of switches,  …) and any additional quantitative information that will allow to define the behavior and the control of each component. 

It also includes the information on the topology which include how the components are wired together (like lighting bars or parallel/serial connections), the additional properties related to this connection (like serial or parallel wiring).

The environment knowledge can seems similar to the system knowledge but is more related to the information external to the system that will influence its behavior. For example, the direction of a light, the presence of a door or a specific furniture ….

For people familiar with 3D rendering, this is the exact same collection of information that needs to be gathered from the environment to generate a picture of a scene.

Finally the system communication is the capability of each component to get direction from a central processing unit or to create a smart grid that will adjust its behavior.

The communication will carry both the expected and observed behavior. For example, a lighting bar can receive the expected color and light intensity and send back information on its power consummation, temperature or measure of aging …

What are then the use cases for this kind of system?

Here are some:

–          In the middle of the night, you have to cross the room but the lighting is automatically triggered but adjusted to a low light intensity due to the night time

–          Susan sits on the Sofa with her tablet; the light is automatically dimmed to have the best environment to watch her favorite movie.

–          Coming back home, the light is automatically following you while moving in the house.

–          In the aircraft, the lighting level and color is automatically adjusted to your preference or to the movie that you are watching.

–          A non-identified user is detected in the room and the system will automatically activate the child protection program that block the wall open plugs

But how to realize such systems without high implementation and deployment costs?

If we look at the 6 dimensions of the systems, several parameters have to be taken into account:

–          For identity, the management of digital identity will be clearly owned by a few majors in digital like Google. The link between the physical identity and the digital identity will be done by small smart systems (like Alexia for the voice and NFC for close identification). The lighting system will have to be able to receive the identity from those external elements

–          For localization, the combination of the different sources will be needed to have a good experience, but if the system have an application running on a customer smart device (like his phone), the use of the technologies is simple and with low cost.

–          For user knowledge, a centralized digital system collecting data will allow to create the initial profil and adjust it over time. A combination of a local capability in the house (with a small smart controller) and a centralized storage of information on the cloud will provide both responsiveness and AI capability

–          For system knowledge, components inside the system (like NFC tag or network digital signature) can simplify the auto declaration of the system and can be combined with installation inventory

–          The most difficult part is the environment knowledge. Solution based on a setup application located on the user cell phone that will use both the camera and the inertial capability of the phone can be a cost effective tool to get an environment map.

–          For the system communication, based on the frequency and size of the needed information, several buses can be used from high bandwith connected communication (like CAN bus) to  low power wireless communication (like Zigbee)

What is the benefit? In environment with multiple users (house or aircraft interior), the ability of the system to change its behavior without invasive interaction with the user is a clear differentiation as the trend of Big Data give the user the impression that Big brother is watching him.

Having a knowledge of the user also allow to combine generic need (like waking up a passenger before arrival) with personal preference (gradual increase of lighting or direct switch) which create a colored experience from the system

All photos available from https://www.pexels.com/