I started thinking about the system I would create. I decided to use Augmented Reality as a way to show the data. I believe it’s a very different approach for this type of tool and hasn’t been done before. I also believed it would be quite interesting to see something initially intangible through augmented elements on your screen, essentially making them tangible digitally.
I started experimenting with an HTML library called a-frame by Mozilla. a-frame lets you create AR through only 10 lines of HTML code. My idea is when a user points their phone at an IoT device, the communications will become visualised. I printed a Hiro marker and placed it beside my Google Home speaker and testing some a-frame code which shows data going in and out from the device.
It proved very challenging to make what I envisioned through AR. The library I was using was very limiting and quite difficult to get it working in the way I wanted to, however, I continued working with it as I could not find a better alternative. I used AR to show the amount of data coming into the device, leaving the device, and whether the data was encrypted or not. I used colour and animation to represent these differently.
Printed Hiro marker placed underneath speaker.
In this test, I used different coloured cuboids to represent different data. The red shows data coming in, and the blue shows data leaving the device. I have started to think about how I could represent different forms of data. Looking at my .json file generated by the Princeton IoT Inspect Tool, there is a lot of possible data I could show.
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