DESIGN NAME: Konnect
PRIMARY FUNCTION: Meditation Device
INSPIRATION: Unmanaged stress and multitasking may negatively impact cognition and social-emotional wellbeing: ability to concentrate may worsen, and managing emotions may worsen, possibly leading to depression and anxiety. By regular exercise of concentrative meditation techniques anxiety decreases, while emotional stability and attention span improves. Still lots of people quit exercising because traditional techniques are time consuming, and the progress of learning is slow and difficult because of the lack of feedback.
UNIQUE PROPERTIES / PROJECT DESCRIPTION: Konnect is an interactive meditation device concept that consists of a smartphone application and two smart bracelets containing motion-tracking sensors. The aim of this concept is to provide the practical advantages of meditation practices such as reducing stress and increasing concentration in an easy and entertaining way.
OPERATION / FLOW / INTERACTION: The usage of the device is based on a series of simple arm motion exercises. Real-time sound feedback through the smartphone speaker or earphones makes learning and practicing the movements easy, and helps to create intense atmosphere. Each move is assigned with a tone and these tones create a melody when the exercise is performed with proper orientation, dynamics and continuity.
PROJECT DURATION AND LOCATION: The project started in January 2015 in Budapest and finished in July 2015 in Budapest as a thesis project.
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PRODUCTION / REALIZATION TECHNOLOGY: The housing is made of Polystone material, the exchangeable straps are made of the combination of natural elastodiene rubber and recycled polyester textile. The system consists of a smartphone application and two motion-tracking smart bracelets. The bracelets contain a 9-axis motion-tracking module, a photoplethysmography sensor, a Bluetooth module, a wireless power receiver and charger, a double layer capacitor, and a proximity sensor.
SPECIFICATIONS / TECHNICAL PROPERTIES: When the two halves joined, the dimensions are 30mm x 15mm x 9mm.
TAGS: Konnect, meditation, concentration, wellbeing, mental health, wearables
RESEARCH ABSTRACT: Literature review was conducted on mental health, and on different types and effectivity of meditation techniques. A survey was created to understand opinions on meditation, motivations and experiences of meditators, and problems of regular practice of meditation. Based on the results, user personas were created. Available and conceptual meditation and relaxation applications and devices were analysed. Motion-based meditation techniques such as Yoga and Qi Gong were tried out to gain insights.
CHALLENGE: One of the hardest parts was the development of the interaction between motion and sound. Another hard part was finding suitable components to ensure feasibility of the concept.
ADDED DATE: 2016-02-25 20:42:48
TEAM MEMBERS (3) : Design: Balázs Tóth, Choreography: Anita Barabás and Sound Designer: Tamás Hauptricht
IMAGE CREDITS: Balázs Tóth, 2015.
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