Talk to me! On interacting with wireless sensor nodes

Wireless sensor networks play an essential role in many pervasive computing scenarios as providers of context data. However, interacting with sensor nodes and selecting specific nodes for an interaction is difficult due to the constraints of the sensor node hardware. In this paper, we present and discuss three different approaches for this node interaction problem based on gestures, on light signals and on information provided by the sensor nodes using their LEDs. We demonstrate in our evaluation that these mechanisms solve the interaction problem for a variety of scenarios and effectively support the user in the interaction process. At the same time, our solutions set only low requirements on the wireless sensor node hardware.