The Deep Dive
Touch screens are all around us, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic people will likely think twice about interacting with a public touchscreen interface. A new solution is needed.
Above is a sample experience where a customer visits one of our visitor centers. The journey suggests that the user approaches the screen and scans a QR-code displayed on the touch screen with a QR-code reader or iPhone camera. The phone opens a website, that shows the buttons, which the user would typically have needed to press on the touch screen. In this setup, however, the user interacts with the touch screen by pressing the buttons on his or her smartphone, which sends high frequency sound signals to the screen in order to change the page.
For this initial POC, the team uses an open source library called ‘quiet-js’ in order to transmit data with sound using web audio. This setup does not require installing any software as the sending and receiving of the ultrasound signals can be handled via web-services.
Using sound signals as a means of connecting a smartphone to a screen is a much less intrusive and complicated process compared to Bluetooth or WiFi . This connection does not require any action by the user such as setting the phone into pairing mode or selecting a WiFi device. All the user has to do is to scan the QR-code.
Please see below a short demo video.