InDesign sheets

Having done the sketches, I have put them into InDesign for the portfolio work later on. After the tutorial, I decided to stick to the first concept, which is cylindrical necklace design. The benefits of doing so are the form and structure of it. Cylindrical design looks neat and minimum, these are my core design philosophy - a good design needs to make life easier not the opposite. In terms of structure, a cylindrical object would have a cylindrical inner space, although this seems harder to fit all the electronic components in than a rectangular one (because most of the components are rectangular, e.g. processor, chips etc.), but there are always solutions to it. For instance, the new Mac Pro by Apple. 

Direction

In the tutorial on 21st Feb, we had explored the direction and possible developments of the three concepts I made. I personally prefer first idea and second one which both of them are necklace design. 

Craig Lynn had suggested that I can develop a proposal of 'smoke detector event' for a number of users to wear my device and generate sets of data (I guess this can be a marketing project as well). For example, the pollution in Beijing is extremely serious so I can let 5,000 users wear my product and get feedbacks from them, and then use these data to conclude that which regions are most polluted or relatively better to stay. 

The next step of this design will be explore and research on sensors and various components that might build into the device, and determine their sizes (volumes). Base on the size of each components, I can then make an exploded view of the product and finalise its overall dimensions. 

The exploded view will be something like these pictures shown below (refer to Misfit Shine):

Sketches

From the previous research stage, I have tried to sketch some of my ideas consist with the key words 'wearable' and 'jewellery', and tried to make them look nice, then I came up with three initial ideas as shown below. In fact, appearance tend to be a very important feature of all wearable devices and this helps increase their 'values'.

Concept 1

A cylindrical device that can be worn as a necklace and so on. Made of aluminium-magnesium alloy. Built in sensors help to measure the smoke level in air and warn the user at specific points. Later on, the smoke data (or air data) will be summarised and transferred to smartphone.

 Concept 2

A hexagonal device that can be worn as a necklace and so on. Similar to concept 1. Made of aluminium-magnesium alloy. Built in sensors help to measure the smoke level in air and warn the user at specific points. Later on, the smoke data (or air data) will be summarised and transferred to smartphone. 

Concept 3

A wrist band design. Made of elastic material. Built in sensors help to measure the smoke level in air and warn the user at specific points. Later on, the smoke data (or air data) will be summarised and transferred to smartphone. The transfer method might be Bluetooth and/or NFC. 

Some pictures of jewellery

As previous blog mentioned, passive smoking detector can be integrated or built as a wearable device. However, this is not good enough for a consumer market product. One of the most important factors that may attract customers is the appearance (form) of the product. Here are some good pictures of jewellery, these can be the references of the size and form of a 'wearable' device. 

Initial thoughts about the design

In the 2nd semester of PDE3, we had launched SCOTSMAN project which dealing with the design opportunities we found on newspapers. SCOTSMAN phase 2 is a continuous project after the presentations of design opportunities, this is an individual project hence we need to choose a favourite topic or focus to develop a product that solve the problem. 

My focus point is passive smoking, because I think this is a serious problem that harm people whether you smoke or not. As a non-smoker, I personally have to stay with smokers sometimes while we are working together or chatting, however, this is obviously not an enjoyable time. The solution to it might be a product that detect smokes at certain level and send alarms to both smokers and non-smokers for noticing the environment they are staying in, and summarise the data in the device so the users can access it later and evaluate the situations - to stay away from the heavy smoke region (for non-smokers) or reduce smoking (for smokers). 

I have an overall idea about the form and function of this specific product, here is the summary:

• a wearable product 
• similar to jewellery
• small in size 
• smoke detecter and other sensors built in
• built in battery 
• long battery life
• sycn with phones or tablets

There are many existing wearable products in the market and they becoming even more popular since the developing of smart phones. Some good examples such as Nike Fuel Band, Jawbone UP, Misfit Shine, etc. The main functions of them are determine and track user's motions such as steps, sleep, and generate data to give a summary. This helps users keep exercise and set up a goal in order to achieve healthier life.

Similarly, detecting smoke level and alarm people can be a good function that integrated with the wearable device. And I think wearable device will be a trend of consumer electronics in this decade and possibly next decade.