HugShirt
The "HugShirt" by CuteCircuit transfers the feeling of being hugged at a distance.
HugShirt during Test_Lab; photo: Mireille de Koning
The Hug Shirt is a shirt that makes people send hugs over distance! The HugShirt was invented by Francesca Rosella and Ryan Genz the co-founders of CuteCircuit, the London based award-winning design company. Embedded in the shirt there are sensors that feel the strength of the touch, the skin warmth and the heartbeat rate of the sender and actuators that recreate the sensation of touch, warmth and emotion of the hug to the shirt of the distant loved one.
The Hug Shirt has been awarded as one of the Best Inventions of the Year 2006 by Time Magazine.
The Hug Shirt is a Bluetooth accessory for Java enabled mobile phones. Hug Shirts don’t have any assigned phone number, all the data goes from the sensors Bluetooth to your mobile phone and your mobile phone delivers the hug data to your friend’s phone and it is seamlessly transmitted Bluetooth to his or her shirt!
Sending hugs is as easy as sending an SMS and you will be able to send hugs while you are on the move, in the same way and to the same places you are able to make phone calls (Rome to Tokyo, New York to Paris).
The system is very simple: a Hug Shirt (Bluetooth with sensors and actuators), a Bluetooth java enabled mobile phone with the HugMe java software running (it understands what the sensors are communicating), and on the other side another phone and another shirt. If you do not have a Hug Shirt but know that your friend has one you can still send them a hug creating it with the HugMe software and it will be delivered to your friend’s Hug Shirt!
