Ambient device

For the company, see Ambient Devices.
A Nabaztag device, communicating simple information to the user through its lights and the position of its ears

Ambient devices are a type of consumer electronics, characterized by their ability to be perceived at-a-glance, also known as "glanceable". Ambient devices use pre-attentive processing to display information[1] and are aimed at minimizing mental effort. Associated fields include ubiquitous computing and calm technology. The concept is closely related to the Internet of Things.[2]

The New York Times Magazine announced ambient devices as one of its Ideas of the Year in 2002. The award recognized a start-up company, Ambient Devices, whose first product Ambient Orb, was a frosted-glass ball lamp, which maps information to a linear color spectrum and displays the trend in the data. Other products in the genre include the 2008 Chumby, and the 2012 52-LED device MooresCloud (a reference to Moore's Law) from Australia.[3]

Research on ambient devices began at Xerox Parc, with a paper co-written by Mark Weiser and John Seely Brown, entitled Calm Computing.

  1. ^ Ziegler 2012.
  2. ^ Daecher & Galizia 2015.
  3. ^ Sherwood, Simon (12 October 2012). "VR pioneer invents 'illumination-as-a-service'". The Register. Retrieved 26 November 2018.