Short-range optical interaction between smartphones and public displays
Morin Ostkamp, Sven Heitmann, Christian Kray · 2015
Public displays are a common sight in urban areas nowadays. Increasingly, they provide means for interaction to let users personalize the content: besides direct touch, interaction is frequently realized via smartphones that wirelessly connect to the displays. While the latter approach has many benefits, e.g., increased flexibility and scalability, key drawbacks include the need to configure (and potentially pay for) wireless connections as well as privacy issues. To address these shortcomings, we propose an approach based on optical communication that drastically reduces the complexity of connecting to displays, eliminates data costs and setup delays, facilitates dynamic transmission of user interfaces, and provides means to better protect the user's privacy. Based on a prototypical implementation of the approach, we carried out a study to assess the properties and limitations of the approach. The results provide evidence for the feasibility of optical interaction between smartphones and public displays.