夜間night*mode

One of the main issues which my final year project, 夜間night*, tried to solve was young people using their mobile phone too much in bed and not getting enough sleep. There was a sense all through out the project that it could be taken further on the software side of things. I was massively disappointed when my idea for an accompanying application could not be made due to iOS developer limitations. This led to the shelving of the application idea and the focus remained on the physical project.

Recently, in an attempt to get back into the way of thinking, I decided to revisit the idea of a software based 夜間night* but look at it from a different angle. Taking the computer as the main focus and the application I blogged about a while ago, f.lux, I wanted to combine the two to envisage what I am calling 夜間night*mode.

Computer screens are generally bad for your eyes. However, this is more apparent at night when the ambient light is lower and the stark blue light from the computer screen can cause eye strain. F.lux gives the screen warmer tones, matching it more to the artificial lighting found in your home (my f.lux setting at the moment is the equivalent of halogen or 3400k).

夜間night*mode expands the idea of f.lux into what I would imaging being a feature built into computer operating systems. Not only would it change the colour temperature of the screen, but it would make a whole host of visual changes to the computer to make it easier on they eye, which would subsequently help reduce eye strain and help the user get to sleep.

Even though this is just a concept and the result of an afternoon of work, it does provide an endless scope of possibilities to take 夜間night* and turn it into something that will actually be of use to someone. Additionally, with the launch of iOS6 and ‘Do Not Disturb’ there may be a renewed possibility of making a mobile application more relating to my project once more. But that is for another time as I have another personal project that is in the sidelines waiting to be completed.

A full write up can be found on the project page I made for it on behance (click here or on the image below).

夜間night*

Description

Technology has become so embedded into everyday life that it is difficult to detach from it, especially for younger generations who often lose valuable sleeping time because of ‘being online’. 夜間night* aims to discourage phone use in bed and aid the process of drifting off to sleep.

夜間night* starts a soothing mood light when the phone is inserted, encouraging sleep whilst charging the phone. 夜間night* will react to the phone when a notification or message is received by flashing brightly and vibrating, disturbing the user, questioning whether the phone needs to be on or not.

Gallery

Video

Press Release

The press release for 夜間night* is available as a .pdf or a .doc

夜間night* Press Release .doc

夜間night* Press Release .pdf

One Hundred Words

Technology has become so embedded into everyday life that it is difficult to detach from it, especially for younger generations who often lose valuable sleeping time because of ‘being online’. 夜間night* aims to discourage phone use in bed and aid the process of drifting off to sleep.

夜間night* starts a soothing mood light when the phone is inserted, encouraging sleep whilst charging the phone. 夜間night* will react to the phone when a notification or message is received by flashing brightly and vibrating, disturbing the user, questioning whether the phone needs to be on or not.

Video

It did not take me long to decide on a sort of theme for my video. I thought that it would have been much more beneficial to the viewer to watch it in a point of view style where the camera is what the user sees. I had great trouble trying to get it filmed well enough. I tried to attach the camera to a hat to create hat-cam, but that didn’t work.

I ended up resorting to just holding the camera with one hand which is why there is only one hand in the video. In short I think it turned out quite successfully. It shows the function of the product and that is really what I wanted to get across. The design should essentially be superfluous if the function is just right. Think of your computer. You don’t really consider the design of it when using it because you are engrossed with what is on the screen.