Beyond Screens: Supporting Co-located Augmented Reality Experiences with Smart Home Devices

TL;DR

This paper presents Spooky Spirits, an AR game that utilizes smart home devices like smart lightbulbs to enhance co-located augmented reality experiences by integrating digital play into the physical environment.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to co-located AR by leveraging smart home devices, expanding AR capabilities into the physical environment beyond traditional screens.

Findings

Smart lightbulbs can be effectively used for AR interactions.

Enhanced physicality improves co-located AR experience.

Demonstrates feasibility of integrating smart home devices into AR games.

Abstract

We introduce Spooky Spirits, an AR game that makes novel use of everyday smart home devices to support co-located play. Recent exploration of co-located AR experiences consists mainly of digital visual augmentations on mobile or head-mounted screens. In this work, we leverage widely adopted smart lightbulbs to expand AR capabilities beyond the digital and into the physical world, further leveraging the physicality of users' shared environment.