Phone-less phone calls

Digitall, by Ana Camilla Amorin and Tristam Sparks, is a kind of "always on" home telephone repurposed as a set of individual transmitters, each of them connected to a house or a person, which can be plugged and unplugged to the system along time. Each of these panels is customizable and can be shared as a gift/visiting card between friends.

The system consists of panels on the wall and an orb controlled by hand pressure.

Each panel has a speaker, a light source and a touch sensor coupled. There's three intensities of colour according to the availability of the person you could call: available, not available and on the phone.

Digitall can be used as an open broadcast channel: the sound from the others houses can be heard at less than 10 cm from the panel. This creates an ambient soundscape that offers an impression of what is happening in the distant space.

To start a conversation, the user touches the panel(s) corresponding to the person(s) s/he wants to talk with. The panel starts blinking and the volume of that channel is amplified. To talk in private mode, the user picks the orb. This simple hand gesture mutes all the speakers and the public microphone. To switch the connection off, the user drops the ball and the system returns to the initial state.

Don't miss the video of the prototype on the designer's website.