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Digital safety shoes are being developed for the safety shoe manufacturer ELTEN under the Smartastic label. As part of a workshop, VRaktion developed various concepts for equipping shoes in work environments with additional useful functions. After I joined Kunze&Kraft GbR, I was responsible for the further development of the prototype concepts. A modular framework approach was used in order to be able to reuse the individual components for different combinations of the individual concepts.

The distance concept was pursued as the first structure. This involves shoes that are equipped with a laser distance sensor at the toe and heel. Appropriately placed vibration modules provide tactile feedback if there is an obstacle in the wearer’s path. There are also two high-performance LEDs on the toe of the shoe to illuminate the work area.

A corresponding app, which is paired with the pair of shoes via Bluetooth LE, allows the shoes to be individually configured. Different obstacle zones and distances can be set.

I designed and developed all the electronic components for Smartastic Distance. On the software side, I created the central firmware with a modular approach and developed the app according to the specified design concepts.

The challenges were housing and connecting the electronics in a standard work shoe (puncture-resistant sole, steel toe cap, etc.), power management, which should allow at least one working day of use, driver integration of the laser distance sensors, smooth Bluetooth coupling of both shoes with the app, and the creation of modular firmware that ensures safe operation.

Apple Watch integration

For more direct, convenient access to the functions of the Smartastic shoes, a simple Apple Watch companion app was developed. This allowed me to make an excursion into Swift in combination with XCode Storyboard.

Vuzix AR glasses integration

The distance data of the Smartastic Distance shoes can be read out live via Bluetooth LE. An app for Vuzix AR glasses was developed for modern data visualization (Android). A simple graphical representation is designed to enable a quick assessment of obstacle situations.

The color design and concept were created by Bernhard Schipper, the implementation was done by me.