Smartmedical Launches Utakata Mood Light App for iOS, the World’s First Vocal Emotion Recognition Lighting App for Philips’ Hue: Visualizing mental states from your voice through the color of light. (Press Release)
TOKYO, July. 7, 2016. Smartmedical Corp. announces the launch of its Utakata Mood Light App for iOS, the world’s first vocal emotion recognition lighting app for Philips’ Hue technology. By connecting Hue API with Empath, Smartmedical’s proprietary vocal emotion recognition technology, the app identifies users’ emotions from their voice, regardless of the language, and changes the color of ambient lighting in response to emotion. The app works with all hue bridges.
The color of light changes in response to emotion.
The app represents emotion through the color of mood balls.
“There are a lot of apps for hue, but there’s nothing like this, which responds to emotion as detected by vocal inputs. This is a whole new lighting experience,” says Takaaki Shimoji, a Smartmedical Corp. board director. “The app enables you to visualize emotion through the color of light. When you are feeling positive, light changes into warm colors, such as red and orange. When you are down, it turns into cold colors such as blue or purple. For instance, if you use the app in your house, you can see how your loved ones feel through the color of light. The app can create a new communication experience with your family.”
Beta testing for a prototype of the app has demonstrated its utility in various scenarios. For instance, in 2014, KOKUYO Furniture and Smartmedical created “That’s Light!” – a meeting space for creative brainstorming in Shibuya Hikarie, Tokyo. “It’s very fun to have a brainstorming meeting in a “That’s Light!” space. The participants’ vigorous discussion of new creative ideas activates lighting in warm colors, which represent positive emotions. The app enables us to visualize the atmosphere of meetings, so most participants say the app is very fun and useful for evaluating meetings,” added Mr. Shimoji.
The app is available for download at iTunes.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/utakata-mood-light/id952031831?mt=8
Smartmedical’s Web Empath API is now available for developers. To register for Web Empath API, visit https://webempath.net/ for details.
About Smartmedical
Smartmedical Corp., comprised of PCC and ICT self-care divisions, is the leading authority in developing PCC (Primary Care Clinics), new medical service platforms at and near railway stations in Tokyo and major cities in Japan that provide preventive medical services and primary care. ICT self-care division supports PCC projects with its advanced ICT technology. It develops and licenses Empath, vocal emotion recognition technology for mental health care. In addition to mental health care services, multiple service sectors such as robotics, call centers, and VR utilize Empath technology.
By analyzing multiple physical properties of the voice, Empath can identify emotions in real-time, regardless of the language. It has been refined through collaborative research programs with prestigious universities such as the University of Tokyo and Nara Institute of Science and Technology. Empath won the 2015 Japan Resilience Award first prize, and an excellence award at MCPC Award 2015.
For more information on Empath, please visit https://webempath.net/lp-eng/.