CommChair®

The CommChairs represent the next generation of office furniture. They combine the functionality of a modern office desktop computer environment with mobile chairs and with the comfort of armchairs. Thus, the Communication Chairs allow working in a standard personal computer environment without being bounded to desks. The CommChair is an example of a roomware® component and constitutes an important part of the i-LAND environment.

The armrest of both prototypes can be swiveled about 90 degrees so that in one position the CommChair® acts as a normal chair and in the second position the armrest functions as a desk or pad.

So far, we developed two variants in order to accommodate different needs: one with an integrated slate computer and one with a docking facility for plugging in laptops or other mobile computers carried along.

Each chair is provided with an interface for a wireless network connection and an independent power supply for maximum flexibility and mobility. The chairs enable people to make private annotations and notes and to connect to shared workspaces, displayed on devices like the InteracTable® or the DynaWall® and edit and annotate objects on these roomware® components remotely.

In the i-LAND project it is planned that the position and the orientation of each CommChair is tracked. This information will be processed in order to initiate a coupled session with shared displays between the CommChairs when they are moved together to form a subgroup. This is based on localization technology we will provide in the room.

2nd Generation

An ergonomic office chair is augmented by a translucent chassis which contains the IT components. A touch-sensitive TFT display is mounted on a flexible arm which can be swiveled to the side facilitating a comfortable way of entering and leaving the chair.

Related Publications:
N. A. Streitz, P. Tandler, C. Müller-Tomfelde, S. Konomi
Roomware: Towards the Next Generation of Human-Computer Interaction based on an Integrated Design of Real and Virtual Worlds.
In: J. Carroll (Ed.): Human-Computer Interaction in the New Millenium, Addison-Wesley, 2001. pp. 553-578.

N. A. Streitz, P. Tandler, C. Müller-Tomfelde, S. Konomi
Roomware: Towards the Next Generation of Human-Computer Interaction based on an Integrated Design of Real and Virtual Worlds.
In: J. Carroll (Ed.): Human-Computer Interaction in the New Millenium, Addison-Wesley, 2001. pp. 553-578.

P. Tandler, Th. Prante, C. Müller-Tomfelde, N. A. Streitz, R. Steinmetz
ConnecTables: Dynamic Coupling of Displays for the Flexible Creation of Shared Workspaces.
In: Proceedings of the 14. Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST'01), ACM Press (CHI Letters 3 (2)), 2001. pp. 11-20.
Keywords: interactive tables, context-awareness, roomware, dynamic coupling, shared workspaces, co-located groupwork

Streitz, N.A., Geißler, J., Holmer, T., Konomi, S., Müller-Tomfelde, C., Reischl, W., Rexroth, P., Seitz, P., and Steinmetz, R.
i-LAND: An interactive Landscape for Creativitiy and Innovation
Published in: ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '99) , Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., May 15-20, 1999.
ACM Press, New York, pp. 120-127.
Please click here to download the full paper (pdf file).

Müller-Tomfelde C., Reischl W.
Communication Chairs: Examples of Mobile Roomware Components.
Proceedings of CHI'98 (Late-Breaking Results).

Streitz, N.A., Geißler, J., Holmer, T..
Roomware® for Cooperative Buildings: Integrated Design of Architectural Spaces and Information Spaces.
In N. Streitz, S. Konomi, H. Burkhardt (Eds.), Cooperative Buildings - Integrating Information, Organization, and Architecture. Proceedings of CoBuild98, Darmstadt, Germany.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 1370. Springer: Heidelberg, 1998, pp. 4-21.

Contact Person:
Dr. Dr. Norbert Streitz( )