History
Internet of Things
In WideTag we were working around the concept of spimes and we were building a few prototypes that would use our then in-development platform, WideSpime, targeted to massive data collection.
Of course, for a small company was difficult to build and distribute lots and lots of hi-tech spimes all around the globe, so while we were working on sensors (CO2), toys (crocodiles), green devices (smart energy meters) and other forms of internet of things, we designed and developed a very simple application that could be scaled efficiently and do some load on our WideSpime infrastructure.
WideNoise 1.0 was born, released on the then new iPhone 3G.
WideNoise 2.0
In a pure agile way, we then started collecting feedback and we added a few features. Yes, on one side it was born as a prototype, but on the other side it was also a great example of a smart sensor that was efficiently raising people awareness about noise pollution in a very simple and direct way.
That's why we then added social features to allow the user to tweet and the ability to create widgets to be included on blogs and websites.
WideNoise 2.0 was then a quite impressive solution: we managed to keep the interface incredibly simple, performing basically all the work at the push of a button, while in the back we analyzed the data and aggregated it through our platform and made it available through widget and social networks.
WideNoise 2.0 got lots and lots of interest, gaining visibility on major newspaper, being cited in the Top 10 Internet of Things object of 2009 by the New York Times and Read Write Web, and being listed in the ADI Design Index 2010 worth a nomination to the world's most prestigious design award, Compasso d'Oro.
WideNoise 3.0
In the summer 2011 we were then contacted by the european project EveryAware, an EU project intending to integrate environmental monitoring, awareness enhancement and behavioral change by creating a new technological platform combining sensing technologies, networking applications and data-processing tools.
With them we agreed to develop WideNoise 3.0, add the Android version and release the source code of both the applications as open source.
While the old rusted style was in many ways a trademark that distinguished WideNoise 2.0, we decided for the research project to go through a full redesign and make it more like a professional tool, with a sheer metal surface and orange lights. With the cooperation of the whole EveryAware project we added also some additional features like the slider to try and guess how much noise is there and the panel to add more details about the sampled noise itself.
Plus, all the raw data detections are being sent to the EveryAware server for collection and analisys.