BuddyClock is designed as a basic, bedside alarm clock, with a time display, alarm setting, and “snooze button” features. The prototype is implemented using Python on a touch-screen Nokia N800 Internet Tablet. Each BuddyClock is connected to the others in its social network via wireless connection to a remote BuddyClock server, which shares real-time alarm status with others. The BuddyClock screen shows alarm status information for up to three other connected clocks. When the user changes the local alarm status (e.g., alarm on, snooze, alarm off), an icon on the display of the other BuddyClocks in the network is changed simultaneously to the corresponding status icon. Changes in a remote user status are also signaled by a quiet audio tone. When the user touches the icons, the clock displays detailed text information next to the name. When an icon representing the “asleep” status is displayed, the display shows the time that a user’s wake-up alarm is set. When the “awake” status is shown, the clock displays the time that a user turned off the alarm. A single blue icon at the top left corner indicates a user’s own sleeping status graphically so users can see how their own status is shown to others.
Source: Kim, S., Kientz, J. A., Patel, S. N., and Abowd, G. D. 2008. Are you sleeping? In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative (CSCW’08). ACM Press, 619–628.
