FeltRadio: Sensing and Making Sense of Wireless Traffic

Radio waves surround us but still they remain largely undetected by our senses. Unless we use specifically tuned hardware, such as FM radios, cell phones or WiFi modems, human beings cannot perceive wirelessly transmitted data. This paper presents FeltRadio, a portable and wireless technology that makes it possible to turn radio signals into visual and tactile stimuli as a form of sensorial augmentation. FeltRadio explores and makes us reflect upon what it would be like if we could sense, and feel, wireless traffic such as WiFi or Bluetooth. We present the technological design behind FeltRadio and the outcome of two exploratory studies with the technology focused on people's experience of being able to suddenly sense and make sense of wireless traffic. We discuss the possible qualities of this embodied experience of FeltRadio and point to future experiments with the technology.