In the world of the Internet of Things there is a growing design phenomenon called “Optimistic UI”.

Optimistic UI displays the action as complete at the same instant as the button press. When you press “On” the button will display the “On” state without any reference to the thing that is being switched “On”. There is an optimistic assumption made that the thing will just come “On”. Hit and Hope has been sanitized and is now called Optimistic UI.

Hit and hope leads to anxieties:

· Did it work?

· Was it already on?

· Do I have a data connection?

· Was my command received?

· Is there anybody out there?

A classic example of Optimistic UI is a pan tilt control for a security camera app. The command to pan left is shown as “done” before the camera has moved and the streamed image is transported to and displayed on the mobile device. As you use the app and experience the multi-clicks, overshoots and streaming lag you can actually see the optimism being defeated — and yet it prevails.

The argument for Optimistic UI is that it is better to show instant feedback than to have users wait for a confirmation signal. This design preference is compelling because computationally powerful, high-resolution touch screens are so seductive. By comparison the communications link between the device and the thing is less attractive and slower. It is tempting for designers to work with the computing and forget about the communications. User expectations also promote Optimistic UI. Most of our UI experience is based on instant feedback. For example: switching on a light or pressing the accelerator in a car. Instant feedback is also expected on many app UI’s. The mere inconvenient fact that IoT feedback signals are often high latency, delayed, narrow-band, remote or non-existent is simply ignored.

 

Figure 1: Optimistic UI switch on an app: Communications routing via a 2 bar mobile network, AWS, account management, home router, system hub and actuator to the target thing.

A more honest, less optimistic, approach is to deploy a ghost state. When you hit the button a “ghost state’ is displayed until the remote thing gives a 500 OK response. Then, only then, does the button show as “done”.

Going back through time there are many example methods and protocols for dealing with delayed switching. The EOT is just one example. The Engine Order Telegraph (EOT) on the bridge deck of a ship signals commands to the engine room. A full ahead command is dialed into the EOT up on the bridge. This causes the order dial to move and a bell to ring below in the engine room. The engineer hears the bell and reads the dial and sets the engine to full ahead. When the engineer gets the engine running at full speed he moves a second dial to full ahead. This shifts the corresponding confirmed dial on the bridge and rings a bell to indicate, “full ahead — now”.

 

Figure 2: In this EOT photo we might assume the Ship is stationary as the SLOW AHEAD has been ordered but the engine status is STOP.

Optimistic UI is misses a great opportunity. Rather than ignoring the process perhaps a better approach is to make the process a UI feature. The beautiful J.W Ray & Co EOT above may serve as point of inspiration. It is possible to re-think the UI so that it does give an indication of process in action sparked by a button press. Facebook Messenger and What’s App indicate when a message is sent and when it is received. Ghost states and other process indicators do not need to visually dominate the UI but they can significantly enhance the overall information value.

 

Figure 3: EyeSpyFX IPIO app: Front Door is Disarmed, back Door is Armed, Yard is in process, showing a ghost state about to Disarmed, Hallway is in process, showing a ghost state about to be Armed.

For EyeSpyFX I/O control app; IPIO we have made a modest attempt at indicating the process in action. We have re-designed simple switches to show two distinct sides: an Off/Disarmed/Open side and an On/Armed/Closed side. When a switch is thrown a ghost state appears before an indication of the new state is confirmed by the system and displayed by the app.

We have called it Positive UI.

Maybe before the idea of the desktop was the idea of “home”. Home is where all things can be found and started from. It is a merge between destination and start point.

The Internet of Things (IoT) brings the idea of home one step further. Control and monitoring of the physical home and all the appliances within is now commonplace. Nest, Alexa, X-Box, Hive, Apple Home just a few of the vendors.

The boundary traditionally drawn around the computer screen has been eroded. Our home space and our information space have collided. In that space we are no longer visitors who can go back home, we are here, permanent participants in a physical and information merged habitat. (Predicted by Bill Mitchell in his 1995 book City of Bits).

A new home page is doubly valuable because the border between work and home has also dissolved. Work is not just a place that is a location, it is with you always, in your pocket as an email, as an IM, on a website, in a phone call. We are always “on”. There was a time, a few decades ago, when going to work and coming home were two discreet entities. Long before that they were one – when we were farming homesteaders. Now home and work seem closely aligned again. If a new all encompassing home can be captured its value is made even greater because it includes work.

Every manufacturer of home appliances – fridges, cookers, microwaves, vacuum cleaners, TVs, heating systems, lights, curtains windows all have IoT systems. In EyeSpyFX we are working on a number of these projects. Information companies also think of home as their natural territory. Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon all have Home systems.

The merge between physical space and information is incomplete at this moment in time. IoT devices are a still a little bit clunky – they have gateways and need to be paired. Information is still mostly accessed via a screen. But this is just a moment in time and our current model is just transitional. Steadily physical space and information are coming together. Expect high stakes and profound change!

There is also a cyber hippy point about harmony and home. Home is a personal and family living space. We protect it, nurture it and shape it. The attainment of home as a physical and information hybrid entity is a gold rush for the soul.

Everyone has heard about IoT. The Internet of Things is a hot topic. It means different things to different people. The idea of a world filled with a network of smart things that sense and react to our environment and help us to live better is a sort of long term elixir goal.
In EyeSpyFX we have been working on IoT projects since 2002. Most of our work was and continues to be about building software for security cameras and access control systems.

Recently, we have been applying our experience and expertise in a slightly different, but related project area. We have turned our attention to the factory production process of IoT products. We have been building systems for safety, functional testing and digital identity christening of IoT products.

As each product (object/appliance/thing/device) approaches the end of a factory production line it is tested for functional performance and it is christened. Our new software, developed for a special client, manages the entire testing and christening process. It performs electrical safety, electronic and computational functionality tests. When the functional tests are complete, our software christens the product with its unique digital identity. It then generates a complete product report.

To perform the safety and functional tests our software uses computer vision to locate objects and read screens. It integrates with electrical safety equipment, robot arms and sensors and is sequenced with production line PLC’s (Programmable Logic Controllers).

This sort of end of line testing is common to most electronic goods as part of the factory Quality Assurance process. However, the christening operations are more characteristic of IoT products.
Each IoT product, although mass produced is made unique by the christening process so it can be identified as a singular individual. EyeSpyFX software christens the product with its date of birth, unique name, encrypted gateway pairing credentials and all aspects of its digital identity. A full report is then generated and sent to the manufacturers central product information repository.

When the christening operations are complete the product can be put in a box and shipped. When the box is opened and the product is switched on for the first time it will send a message to various systems saying; “I am on, my sensor data report is…etc”. The product will make contact with the utilities from which it draws power, the service centres where it sends health reports, the other products and sensors in the neighbourhood whom it syndicates with and via an app, with the people who own it.

And so another smart thing is added to the global IoT population. Maybe some day the elixir goal will be achieved.

Smart interacting things

App developer:

We are looking for an app developer to join us to work on exciting challenging software projects. Ideally the applicant will have a degree in computing science and be interested in technology.

EyeSpyFX provide IoT app development services and products to security camera and access control manufacturers. Our clients include many of the world lead security camera and access control manufacturers. We also have our own in-house range of software and hardware products to develop and maintain.

We take on difficult projects so it is essential that you are highly motivated and interested in technology generally. You will need to continue to learn new development techniques to allow you to grow and change with range of projects we deal with.

We would welcome CVs from students who will graduate in June 17 and from people with one or two years of experience.

The mobile phone can be characterised as the product that has eaten everything. When the phone eats things the things do not die they just change shape. They become phone shaped.
My photo album, TV, email client, compass, map holder, calendar, address book, web browser and alarm clock are now all phone shaped portrait orientated rectangles.

My record collection has become a list on Spotify. I now share playlists! My diary with its flip over paper pages is now a scrolling list whose days appear as I swipe.

Will phone shapes continue to dominate?

There is an interesting trend where phone functions are distributed to a smart watch. This promotes a pause to think of a world that is post phone shaped – a wearable world.
There is also the rise of SIRI and OK Google to consider. Maybe the phone shape will not be so important if we talk to our computers or more fancifully if our phones guess our needs and talk to us. Will we build a talking, auto tweeeting sort of world, or maybe just silence. I think I prefer my computer on mute. These ideas are for the future, yes, perhaps the near future but for now it is hard to see beyond a dominant phone shape – everywhere.

It is certain that much of the physical environment will morph into a mobile phone app. Early candidates for becoming phone shaped are home heating systems, access control, personal fitness and wellness. A clear trajectory is in place where the phone consumes many of our well know physical objects and activities. In this there is a sense of loss that so many things and activities of days past are now phone shaped apps. Time, perhaps for a short lament and then we need to face the challenge.
If things become phone shaped then they should do so wholeheartedly – without pretending to be something else or harking back. Of course we should recognize the limitations of phone shapes and also recognize the opportunities for wonderful new assisted social activities.

There will be a period of growing up in this augmented environment we now share with personal machines. In the early days (we are in that period) there will some poorly judged interactions. For example, just because you can share your toothbrush status does not mean that it is a good idea.

Steve Sufaro of Axis Commnications proposed a three step test to define an IoT device. It is this:

1. Is the device capable of being remotely detected; is there the ability to know what IoT devices and components are connected to a given network or system?
2. Can the device become trusted and authenticated on a network?
3. Is the device able to be updated and upgraded to enhance features, deliver data and improve device security?

Assuming that the test is good and that a particular device passes on all counts what further definition could be given to IoT devices? How should we think about things? What kind of language should we use?
It is clear that all IoT devices are communicating entities however not all IoT devices are equal. Different communication regimes pertain to different devices. Stratifying IoT devices by the sort of communication regime they operate in could help us think about things and the relationship we have with them. Here is our concept:

A plain old thing – fails all thee of Sufaro’s tests and is not considered to be part of the IoT. A roll of sellotape or a pot for example.

A local thing – the communications with this thing occurs locally – only. The device exists behind a LAN or some other sort of network (Bluetooth or a zigbee mesh for example). Detection and Authentication is completed within the local network. Updating can be achieved by using a proxy device such as a mobile app, which in turn connects to the device and updates it.
An example of a local thing is a Bluetooth controlled heater working in connection with a mobile app.

A wide thing – communicates with someone or something on the internet. The architecture for such a device often includes: the device itself and peripheral sensors, a cloud service including data sources, a user control and monitoring panel, often in the form of a mobile app. Home automation control hubs and cloud based security camera systems are wide things.
A simple example of a wide thing is a lamp that changes colour when a favourite football team scores a goal.

A swarm thing – communicates with other things in the network. A swarm thing acts like a single entity although it is comprised of many constituent entities. Some access control systems are swarm things. A city traffic light system acting in unison could be a swarm thing. A change in the state of one thing affects the state of other things in the network. A key feature of a swarm thing is that it enables the addition of a connection to another thing thereby increasing its functionality.

An autonomous thing – acts in a wide environment responding to cases it detects to achieve a set goal. The control panel for an autonomous thing allows the user to change parameters of the goal. The communication with an autonomous thing is primarily at the start of its life when it is set its task. Devices for seeking an equilibrium state in an environment could be autonomous things.

The divisions between the strata are not fixed or ranked. It is possible to envisage and autonomous local thing for example. The level of remote control, programmatic agency or artificial intelligence in the thing is not the critical stratification (things will certainly get smarter) it is instead the communications regime that any individual thing operates within that is the identifier.