This is a project of Google, YesYesNo, and the advertising agency 72andSunny. It was exhibited at the festival SXSW 2013 in Austin, Texas, and also at the Cannes Lions Festival 2013 in France.
The Talking Shoe is an interactive shoe designed to motivate its owner to move. It was developed as an experiment on how wearable technology could interact with the people and with the Internet. The shoe includes an accelerometer, gyroscope, three pressure sensors and Bluetooth capability to connect to a smartphone through an app. The electronics allow to measure movement in X, Y and Z axis, and the speaker tells the user pre-recorded phrases according to the activity detected.

My work in this project was to participate in everything related to the shoe design in the process of hacking it, along with developers of the electronic PCB’s and the phone application. In this process I was in charge of designing how to integrate electronics into the shoe, to protect them from damage due to movement and possible shocks. I designed and 3D modeled pieces that were 3D printed after. These pieces were mainly cases to cover and protect the electronics, and to amplify the sound, in the case of the speaker.

• Google — Art, Copy & Code: The Talking Shoe (Case Study) from Ben Hughes on Vimeo.

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