After applying two coats of conductive paint with a roller, they removed the tape and connected the electrodes. Using painters’ tape, they found they could create a cross-hatched pattern on a wall to make a grid of diamonds, which testing showed was the most effective electrode pattern. They also wanted to make it easy to apply the special coating with simple tools and without special skills. Yang Zhang, a PhD student in the HCII, said, “Walls are large, so we knew that whatever technique we invented for smart walls would have to be low-cost.” He and his colleagues thus dispensed with expensive paints, such as those containing silver, and picked a water-based paint containing nickel. “As the internet of things and ubiquitous computing become reality, it is tempting to think that walls can become active parts of our living and work environments.”
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“Walls are usually the largest surface area in a room, yet we don't make much use of them other than to separate spaces and perhaps hold up pictures and shelves,” said Chris Harrison, assistant professor in CMU's Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII).
#SMART WALL PAINT TV#
By monitoring activity in the room, this system could adjust light levels when a TV is turned on or alert a user in another location when a washing machine or electric kettle turns off. These new capabilities might enable users to place or move light switches or other controls to any point on a wall where they’re most convenient or to control video games by using gestures. The researchers found that they could use conductive paint to create electrodes across the surface of a wall, enabling it to act both as a touchpad to track users’ touch and an electromagnetic sensor to detect and track electrical devices and appliances. Using conductive paint and electronics components, the team turned the plain test walls into smart infrastructure that sensed human touch and detected gestures, as well as registering when appliances were used.