Open IoT
Open IoT
Exploring the Internet of Things
In an open, distributed studio
that cares about privacy, inclusion and literacy in connected spaces
This wiki page is a open, living document, so please add your ideas and see also our Github Issue Tracker.
About
Tomorrow’s Internet is going to be everywhere. Connectivity will be embedded in your transportation, your home, your places of learning and work, your clothing and probably even in your skin. It is estimated that by 2020, 41 billion devices will be online, driven by an Internet of Things (IoT) market worth $7.1 trillion.
The Internet is a global, public resource that should be open and accessible to all. As the Internet evolves, it must remain a public resource. It will also offer opportunity for creativity and innovation beyond the screens of our computers and phones.
The rules aren’t yet written. We believe strongly that everyone should be able to read, write and participate in their connected environments on their terms. What is needed to ensure the future Internet is open and accessible to all?
With a proud history of protecting and contributing to the Internet, Mozilla invites you to engage in these questions with us.
To explore these questions through action, the Mozilla Foundation is cultivating a professional learning community who can shape the Internet of Things with Mozilla’s values in the decade to come.
Principles
- Learning by making. We don’t know yet how to influence IoT. Mozilla is exploring its role in this new space. The best way we can figure that out is by trying and learning from these efforts alongside inspired collaborators.
- Participatory and inclusive. We’re only going to make truly innovative things by inviting a diverse set of people to be part of the process. We have to include new voices and foster creativity at the edges. This means a deep commitment to open practices and participatory design and having humility about our role.
- Strength in networks. We can’t do this alone, and many others are already active in this space. We’re stronger when we take action together with allies. We will augment Mozilla’s existing leadership network, while engaging new kinds of leaders and practitioners to know more and do more with the Internet of Things.
People
Below is a growing list of individual and organizational collaborators.
- Michelle Thorne (@thornet): Directs the IoT Hub. Drive the hub as an initiative of the Mozilla Leadership Network.
- Jon Rogers (@ileddigital): Senior research fellow on a sabbatical from the University of Dundee, leveraging his network and expertise to the hub.
- University of Dundee
- Quicksand
- London V&A Museum
- Oficina Arduino
- Raspberry Pi Foundation
- Casa Jasmina
- Fablab Berlin
- The Good Home Project
- ThingsCon
- National Institute of Design
- Unbox Festival
- Share Foundation
- British Council
- Just Things Foundation
- BBC R&D
- Simply Secure
- #SherlockIoT
- Web We Want Foundation
- School of Maa
- Made by Many
- Automata Farm
- UK Met Office
Activities
Prototypes
Create tangible expressions of how things could be, should be and shouldn’t be for IoT. The prototypes will provide the “collaborative substrate” that supports community leaders in learning and making together, while putting our values into action. The prototypes will be grounded in user research and user testing.
Conductive Contracts
Complete the circuit by stamping it. Your contract will be digitally authorized using conductive ink, Indian stamp paper, and your thumbprint. This project considers whether paper contracts would benefit from digital features. Possible use cases include: verifying the signatures in the contract or notifying a database that the contract has been completed. This prototype was initiated at the Unbox Caravan in Jan 2016
Internet Adhesives
Explore how to append the internet to everyday objects. This prototype was initiated at the Unbox Caravan in Jan 2016 and further developed and exhibited with The Good Home project in Milan in March. It argues that people shouldn’t have to buy a new object in order to get it talking with the web. It also argues that being able to open and modify an object is an important part of owning it.
Privacy Machines
A family of machines giving you the tools to control your privacy. This prototype was developed during the Mozilla Open IoT Design Sprint in Berlin in response to the scenarios of "Mindfulness and well being."
Exploring the Intimate in IoT
Certain objects have a significant place in our lives, in how we relate to each other and certain events. Such objects often act as triggers for places, people and experiences that can transfer us in time and space and connect us with significant others. Over a period of time, some of the objects we gather and share find their way into our homes, in more open spaces like the living room, or other more personal spaces kept in a drawer. While still others are discarded and lost. Printed pictures often occupy space in our mum’s and grandmother’ homes. Pictures from my high school and university graduations, my brother’s picture from the military, picture from my mum’s wedding. Even though over the years the medium of creating, storing and accessing data have changed, most of us share an intrinsic need of connectivity with each other and things we love or wish to remember.
Exploring the Private in IoT
At the same time people inspire us to think different on issues and concerns on our highly connected world and we try to explore the more social values of IoT, the physical environment and the our surroundings have their own language to inspire us. Inspired by the environment and found objects during a walk around the FabLab in Berlin, this project “translated” them in different interactive qualities to see how they could be useful for the IoT.
TrashBeauty
Sorting images from in-home connected cameras. This prototype was developed during the Mozilla Open IoT design sprint in Berlin.
- VALUE PROPOSITION. Better Treasure: Higher quality photos thanks to ambient capture. Better Trash: Improved data removal experience providing empowerment and user control of data.
- USER NEED. Family photos are valuable, but busy families can’t always document the birth and childhood of their children – especially the second child.
Shutupify
The stories of families bickering over fridges or monitoring remote family members well being brought up a general question around how you can use a better understanding of your environment as a way to foster day-to-day wellbeing in a family. The problem space to explore than became: How do you solve for mindful wellbeing in a family context? The team focused in on family dinner arguing as one of the key issues of day-to-day wellbeing in a household for busy families.
Mediator Bot
Busy families needs a way to manage their wellbeing to provide them a way to mindfully understanding their day-to-day interactions and behaviours. Can we create something that can help manage how people interact and communicate in the home, by providing a feeling of being in control along with objective intervention and mediation? The solution: A device that seamlessly exists in your room. It monitors and tracks your in-home interactions (through voice and sound) and objectively mediates issues and incidents (through a Family Bot).
Flocky Bird
This prototype was developed on February 21, 2016 in collaboration with Junior Lab Berlin. The goal was to create a 3-hour workshop format for children aged 8 - 14 that explore software and hardware in a hands-on way. The workshop creators were interested in collaborative gaming, peer learning, basic computer and web literacy, simple electronics, and ways to bridge the physical world with the web.
Convenings
Gather smart, interdisciplinary practitioners to prototype and innovate with open values. Building prototypes is better, faster, and more impactful when people are together. We want to invite new partners to take action with us–designers, technologists, activists, educators and more–as well as collaborate with Mozillians such as the Connected Devices team, Participation team, and others in the Mozilla Leadership Network.
Unbox Caravan
At the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, India from Feb 1–13 2016. Participants across disciplines of creative technology, design, art, urban planning kicked off projects and collaborations.
Hosted by Quicksand's Unbox Labs.
The Good Home
The Good Home project explores ideas for 21st century urban living. We are building a pop-up urban living unit for the 21st century. In an on-going series of installments it will explore what life for a technologically-savvy household could look like while they are (and sometimes aren’t) at home in the near future. We will showcase how flexible living interacts with the limitations of diminishing household budgets, limited global resources, evolving concepts of privacy, the sharing economy, and global migration.
Hosted by Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino and Peter Bihr.
Exhibited at:
Berlin Design Sprint
As part of Mozilla’s exploration of the Internet of Things, we’ll convene leading practitioners from Friday, April 22 - Monday, 25, 2016 to respond to clear design scenarios about how users can understand and control personal data in the connected home. The Berlin design sprint is about making prototypes. Before arriving in Berlin, participants will be given insights based on user research and expert interviews and generate ideas in collaboration with other participants. The time spent in Berlin will be honing these ideas by implementing them in objects and experiences.
The goal will be to have several working prototypes that reflect the design scenarios and deepened understanding of what it’s like to build experiences based on user research.
Hosted by Michelle Thorne and Jon Rogers at Fablab Berlin.
Mozilla All-Hands London
- Participating in the Innovation ideation skill-building sessions and hackathon.
- Drop-in Physical Prototype Clinic
Scotland Design Sprint
As part of Mozilla’s exploration of the Internet of Things, we’ll convene leading practitioners in Anstruther, Scotland from Monday, June 20 - Friday, June 25, 2016 to respond to a clear design brief about how communities can be empowered collectively by using IoT and open practices.
The Scottish design sprint is about actively involving communities to explore IoT and make technology alongside them so it fits their lives. A key output will be a collection of ethnographic community publications that exemplify a new way of open source ethnographic design research practice. These will consider privacy, community consent and control, scalability of in-depth research studies, dynamic ethics (how do permissions change over time?) and how can we share research outputs in a useful and shareable, responsible way.
Hosted by Jon Rogers and Michelle Thorne at the Dreel Hall and University of Dundee Makerspace
ThingsCon Retreat
Chattanooga
London Design Festival
Mozfest
Research
Foster partnerships and funding opportunities to grow and sustain the initiative. Insights can be shared that inform future Mozilla efforts. We will leverage and contribute to the larger Mozilla network and document processes in the open so others can learn from and participate in them.
User Control in the Connected Home
- Design Scenarios. Research led by Quicksand.
Get Involved
- Tell us about what resonates (or doesn’t) about this approach, and give us feedback on the methodology.
- Let us know about any related projects you’re working on and suggestions on how we might work together.
- Help us develop design briefs that ask important questions about the Internet of Things as it relates to Mozilla’s values.
- Share your experience in IoT, privacy, or design research as part of our expert interview series.
Contact us by email at iot @ mozillafoundation . org or in our Github issue tracker. Say hi on IRC and Twitter by pinging Michelle Thorne (@thornet) and Jon Rogers (@ileddigital).