CAMpanion: An Ambient Light Box Connecting Humans to Pet Dogs

Abstract

Pet owners form strong emotional bonding with their pet dogs, but sometimes they have to be separated from their pet dogs due to varying reasons resulting in negative feelings such as distress or anxiety. Researchers and designers in HCI have explored a variety of approaches to resolve this issue, including designing pet camera, pet chat system, as well as devices for playful remote interaction and haptic simulation. Informed by prior work on facilitating intimacy between distant couples and family members, we present the design and implementation of cAMpanion to promote distant owner's sense of connectedness to their pet dogs when separating from each other. cAMpanion displays three statuses of pet dogs via different light colors in real-time enabled by sensor modules installed in pet dog's living environment. We share lessons learned from a pilot study examining potential issues during sensor deployment as well as participants’ feedback toward cAMpanion.