Weather to Go - A Blended Sonification Application

Presented at the 20th International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD2014), June 22-25, 2014, New York, NY.People often stay in touch with the weather forecast for various reasons. We depend on knowing the upcoming weather conditions in order to plan activities outside or even just to decide what to wear on our way to work. With weather to go we present an auditory weather report which informs the user about the future or current weather situation when leaving home in the morning or the office in the evening. The sonification is designed to be calm, coherent and expectable so that it can blend well into the user’s familiar environment. In this work the auditory display is activated when somebody leaves through the door. The activity is sensed by a multi-purpose sensor unit mounted at the door. When the door is opened, weather to go renders and plays sounds that characterize the weather forecast for the region where the system is located. That way, the system raises the user’s awareness for suitable clothes, transportation or route to take to the destination in the right moment