Magic Tea is an interactive installation aimed to invite transformative experiences during the everyday act of preparing and drinking tea (fig. 1). The first design included several instances of entrainment to promote slow breathing. From previous user tests, it became clear that many participants didn’t notice the entraining stimuli or that the stimuli themselves were […]
Tag Archives: breath
breathing_time at the Quantified Self conference
On May 12th I lead a breakout session at the second European quantified self conference in Amsterdam. The goal was to exchange experiences in breath and group tracking and to demo the new, wireless version of the breathing_time concept. I started the breakout with an overview of the previous version. We soon got into a […]
performance 11-5
Last Friday was the première of the breathing_time performance. I was very, very nervous. So nervous that I forgot to start the sound software… But the animation was beautiful and the data came through very well. One participant wasn’t present, I don’t know what went wrong, he came online at 19:15 as you can see […]
work in progress
I’m working on the breath detection software and the device design. I’ve concentrated on detecting the breathing in and out and the event between breaths. Especially the distinction between in and out is hard as there is wind flow in both cases. So I use the difference in temperature to detect the in and out. […]
device and software
I’m currently developing the device design and the software for breathing_time. I realise now that the form factor of the device must come from the possibilities of the wind sensor. It works best when the breath is guided to the sensor. That way I can detect inhaling and exhaling. I’ve been trying out different sizes […]
breathing device
Constructing the RBBB Arduino isn’t as easy as suggested. The manual says 30 minutes. If I don’t make any mistakes (to which I’m prone) I might be able to do it in an hour but no less. After I didn’t manage to get the first one to work I started out with a fresh one […]
breathing device design
I’ve been doing some research and sketching for the breathing_time breath detection device. It could take the shape of piece of clothing or lean more towards a device/tool look. I’ve explored the possibilities: I think the wearable variation is a bit too much: As air is such a subtle, immaterial thing I want to underline […]
breathing sequence slow
I’ve managed to program the first representation of breathing-time. This is a sequence of the way the drop changes when I’m actually breathing while wearing the stretch sensor. The dept of the breath determines the diameter and alpha value of the ‘drop’. The breath rate determines the blurring and horizontal position of the drop. Slow […]
discovering breath
I’ve upgraded my code for the stretch sensor graph in Processing. The sensor outputs numbers. When I breath in or out the number gets lower. Detecting breathing activity isn’t as easy as looking for a numbers below 200 for example. Because over the time of wearing the sensor the whole range of numbers starts to […]
stretch sensor visualisation
I’ve upgraded the first circuit with the potentiometers and the results look promising. I used the Processing sketch that comes with the Arduino to make a graphic of my breathing activity. I’ve tagged the different regions in the graph so it’s easy to follow the movement of the breath. Btw the circuit is constructed in […]