Hyperpersonal edge-cases & exploratory brand products.

Technology enables audiences to experience brands’ promises in exciting, innovative, and more immersive ways. New technology should be embraced, and creatives should explore the possibilities AI presents and embrace the possibility of broadening their skillsets with innovative tools.
(While remaining humble.*)

*See meme

Spotify/Sonos controller

HYPERPERSONAL EDGE-CASE

(I take my home office setup very seriously.)

My home office has two grouped Sonos One speakers for left and right stereo audio. Adjusting my computer’s volume would not adjust the volume of the music from the Sonos speakers. I’d either have to reach over and manually adjust the sound or open the Sonos app to adjust the volume there. This design oversight frustrated me and what started as a minor inconvenience festered to what became, I guess if you’d ask a therapist, an unhealthy degree.

Problem

Audio from Spotify’s servers goes directly to the speakers. My keyboard’s volume keys were adjusting my computer’s speakers, which had nothing playing on them.

TL;DR Mac volume keys adjust an output path with nothing playing on it.

Thinking

Highly contextual, so it’s less about what it should do than what it shouldn’t. Make my keys control what I’m listening to, not what I’m not listening to.

Smartkeys 🫳🎤
No settings, buttons, menus, taps. One set-and-forget program.
It looks for five signs I’m working in my office. It’s conditional: any rule not met means I’m not there, and the program is inactive.

Two or more monitors connected (laptop’s docked, I’m at my desk)
It knows which speaker of the two runs the group
That speaker’s answered in the last ten seconds (how it knows I’m on the right network)
The speakers are playing
What’s playing came from Spotify

Constraint

Commercial options are inflexible and dumb. Once you set them your volume keys only adjust your speakers. Use headphones, undock your computer, and they become useless. My need was specific: In my home office with my MacBook Pro shut and docked. I told you, this became an unhealthy obsession.

Result

About two hundred lines of code plus a discovery helper to help identify the specific IP addresses of Sonos speaker group coordinator (master speakers) on my network. Shoutout Hammerspoon. Ability to set the volume increase/decrease increment.

Performs flawlessly when docked, disconnects when undocked.

✨ Bonus ✨

I got a Logitech mouse with a whole mess of buttons just to see how far this idea would stretch. Wired two side buttons to the same five conditions so that I could adjust volume without having to let go of my mouse while using it.