WristMan – A DisplayMote Interface for Personal Server Audio Control

1. WristMan – A DisplayMote Interface for Personal Server Audio Control Scott Batura & Dan Nealey

2. Basic concept • WristMan is a media control device • WristMan allows a user to control streaming music on the Personal Server from the wrist • You can select which song to play and navigate playlists and folders • WristMan is targeted towards users that have a lot of music on their computers but don’t want to use a computer to control playback • Similar interface to Apple iPod • Allows users to easily select songs and playlists • Features rotary dial to move through lists of information

3. Basic Scenario • User will select to browse playlists or the song library • If the user chooses to browse the playlists, he will be able to select from a list of playlists present on the Personal Server. If they choose to browse the song library, they will be presented with a lists of folders that organize the song library • The user will then be able to use the buttons on the Mote to select which song or playlist to play on the Personal Server • While playing the song, they can stop and return to the last menu level Song Library > Playlists > Options >

4. Architecture • Main Components: • Intel Personal Server • Holds music, streaming server software • Server Mote • Relays communication between Display Mote and PS • Display Mote • Main user interface. Displays song and playlists and captures user input

5. Architecture Continued User selects song or playlist on the Display Mote Sends info request over radio Translates radio packet into serial data PS interprets request and packages information Display Mote Personal Server Server Mote The serial packets are retransmitted over the radio The requested data is sent via serial port Info the user requested is displayed back on the Mote

6. Expected effort • We need to write several software pieces • Most importantly, we have to establish communication software between the three main components • We need to write software to maintain the library and control the streaming server • We need to write the user interface software, preferably by writing a menuing toolkit • Unknowns • We are not sure about the system latency • Need to make sure the system feels “real-time” • It might be difficult to use the final project • DisplayMote buttons are small and the screen is hard to read • Contingency plans • The main contingency plan is to try and slim down the amount of data transmitted over the links

7. Related Work • Group A is doing a similar project involving controlling the Personal Sever with Cell Phones • We got the initial ideas for the UI from the iPod • There is a lot of working going on with intelligent wristwatches, including the radio network watches Microsoft is currently developing

8. Burning questions • Big Questions • Can the latency in the system be kept to a minimum so the interaction feels real-time? • Will we be able to design a menu system that looks good on the small DisplayMote screen? • What do you need help/advice with? • We could use advice later in the project on strategies for caching data on the DisplayMote and speeding up data transfers

9. Evaluation • How would you evaluate your project? • Does it work as we intended it to? • Is the response of the system close to real-time? • Is the interface a practical idea? • What performance tests are important? • Can a user interact with the Personal Server within reasonable tolerance of waiting times? • What would you want to know from user studies? • The most important data we could get from a user study is if they find the UI or platform cumbersome and what we could do to improve it