Smart-Its - Communication and Sensing Technology for UbiComp Environments

More and more Ubiquitous computing scenarios arise where computers are embedded into everyday objects as secondary ariefacts. The need for a generic platform to enhance such artifacts is addressed by the Smart-Its project. TecO's Smart-Its are small-scale embedded computer devices that can be easily attached to everyday objects and simply programmed for a special task. Just like paper Post-Its are able to add some information to an object a Smart-Its could add some computing, perception and communication capability to an object. All this capability was integrated into the tiny Smart-Its board itself that is able to operate without any additional infrastructure. This paper introduces the architecture of the Smart-Its hardware, the design decisions for the hardware itself and presents experiences we made while constructing and operating these devices; some of these experience are also based on the deployment and use of the first 160 Smart-Its devices.