The experiment Smart Ski Goggles aims at the experimentation of a real-time information
system implemented into a wearable data goggle (Oakley Airwave). The displayed
information about lifts, slopes, weather, hospitality, community activities and the resort in
general support users with congestion monitoring and basic navigational hints. Smart Ski
Goggles is aiming to enhance the visitor experience while skiing on the mountain. This
document explains how the experiment is set up, its requirements to stakeholders and
Experimedia components. Furthermore it contains information about ethics and privacy
aspects and describes the project schedule.
D4.10.1
SmartSkiGoggles Experiment Problem
Statement and Requirements
2014-02-11
Gerald Binder (evolaris)
www.experimedia.eu
EXPERIMEDIA Dissemination Level: PU
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Project acronym EXPERIMEDIA
Full title Experiments in live social and networked media experiences
Grant agreement number 287966
Funding scheme Large-scale Integrating Project (IP)
Work programme topic Objective ICT-2011.1.6 Future Internet Research and Experimentation (FIRE)
Project start date 2011-10-01
Project duration 36 months
Activity 4 Experimentation
Workpackage 4.10.1 Smart Ski Goggles
Deliverable lead organisation evolaris
Authors Gerald Binder (evolaris)
Bettina Scheucher (evolaris)
Johannes Anderwald (evolaris)
Reviewers Stefan Prettenhofer (Infonova)
Aleksandra Kuczerawy (K.U. Leuven)
Version 1.0
Status Final
Dissemination level PU: Public
Due date PM27 (2013-12-31)
Delivery date 2014-02-11
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 3
2. Experiment Description .................................................................................................................... 4
2.1. Learning Objectives .................................................................................................................. 5
2.2. Experiment Procedure ............................................................................................................. 6
2.3. Background ................................................................................................................................ 7
2.4. Assumptions and Preconditions ............................................................................................. 7
2.5. Parameters .................................................................................................................................. 7
2.6. Constraints ................................................................................................................................. 8
3. Ethics and Privacy .............................................................................................................................. 9
4. Experiment Design .......................................................................................................................... 11
4.1. Requirements ........................................................................................................................... 11
4.2. System Architecture ................................................................................................................ 11
4.3. Content Lifecycle .................................................................................................................... 13
5. Plan for Implementation ................................................................................................................. 15
6. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 16
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1. Introduction
The experiment “Smart Ski Goggles” aims to experiment with a real-time information system
implemented into a wearable data goggle (Oakley Airwave). The displayed information about
lifts, slopes, weather, hospitality, community activities and the resort in general support users
with congestion monitoring and basic navigational hints. Smart Ski Goggles is aiming to enhance
the visitor experience while skiing on the mountain.
The proposed experiment builds upon the outcomes of a field study conducted during the FIS
Alpine World Ski Championships 2013 by the competence centre for mobile communication
and innovation evolaris. The experimentation will implement an application for the Oakley
Airwave digital data goggle displaying and processing information, which was found most useful
by skiers in a real-life test. Thus the Smart Ski Goggles app will integrate real-time information
about current load and basic navigation for lifts, slopes and hospitality points of interest in the
ski area, as well as social media features. Current temperature, actual weather forecasts and
avalanche warnings will be implemented in the app to keep the users well informed about the
current conditions on the slope.
The experiment foresees the incorporation of the following EXPERIMEDIA software
components:
ECC for experiment control & monitoring
PCC for POI management
SCC for sharing status and content via social media
AVCC for image analysis of visual data of cameras
Evolaris as active member of the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL) will follow a co-
creation approach in the app development and apply a well suited design science methodology to
derive a tailor-made solution right from the end users needs and requirements as starting point.
A targeted dissemination & exploitation strategy (including business model scenarios) under
strong involvement of the local stakeholders and business partners in the Schladming resort at all
stages of the experimentation will guarantee to meet the expectations and assure a maximum of
sustainability of the proposed solutions, also beyond the project’s lifetime. This is underlined by
the composition of LoS partners (resort operator, local retail expert, tourism organization and
specialized technology provider).
The objectives of this experiment are to:
analyse and define the stakeholder needs in the Schladming venue & the user needs/
requirement profile for a Smart Ski Goggles app
implement a real-time information system for a wearable ski data goggle (Oakley
Airwave) in the Schladming international ski resort
pilot the developed app in real-life settings, disseminate the results and define suitable
business models to assure long-term sustainability of project results
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2. Experiment Description
Schladming is the leading international ski resort in Austria. As the host of the 2013 Alpine Ski
World Championship Schladming is worldwide known and has a strong interest in keeping the
image of a modern and progressive ski resort alive. Thus, digital services which enable a much
richer and more comfortable skiing experience are a great way to attract both, existing and new
guests. Therefore if the digital services help to distribute guests across the resort and better use
the capacity of the available ski lifts and slopes in the resort, this is also a benefit for the lift
company. This can even be expanded to the hospitality area, in that sense, that also there the
opportunity of targeting skiers with special information creates a measurable impact on attracting
guests. Overall this leads primarily also to a better experience for the guests.
During the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships 2013 evolaris conducted already a field study
on the acceptance of Oakley Airwave digital ski goggles in the Schladming resort. During this
study regular skiers were asked to test the Oakley Airwave ski data goggles with an integrated
mini display, where information like speed, altitude and airtime were shown. The overall
feedback of the testers was very positive. Wearing the goggles was for almost every tester not
distracting and they liked the speed information, though it was judged as ‘nice-to-have’. When
asked which functions the testers would appreciate in a future version of the goggles, most of
them named weather, navigation and information about slopes, huts and lifts. Context was
commonly judged as very important.
Study key findings:
the Oakley Airwave digital ski goggles were evaluated positive and as hardly distracting
the mini display was judged as ok, but with better placement possible
current information (e.g. ’speed‘) were seen as ’nice to have’
as more useful real-life information were considered:
o weather, navigation, resort information, availability of slopes, lifts
context was considered as very important:
o e.g. weather forecast more important than incoming SMS
good acceptance for wearable displays if useful applications are available
o sports (e.g. ’Lifelogging‘, ’QuantifiedSelf’)
o security (dangerous environments, mountain rescue, avalanche warnings)
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Table 1: Evaluation of potential features by study participants (n= 23)
The experiment Smart Ski Goggles takes this and the inputs of the venue partner and the Letter
of Support partner to develop a targeted software for the data ski goggle and evaluate it during
the pilot phase with skiers.
The development of the software will include:
development of prototypes
backend development and EXPERIMEDIA component integration
external data integration (e.g. SkiData congestion raw data, external weather forecast
service, POI integration)
backend experimentation cockpit development (integration with ECC)
testing of first prototypes
refinement of the app concepts/prototypes for final version
final functionality testing and bug-fixing
deployment on defined platforms for real-life piloting
2.1. Learning Objectives The overall goal is to understand the practical usage potential of real-time information displayed
in data goggles. In general, we want to understand, which functionalities are useful for the skier
and which are not. This will be done by investigating an emerging technological solution and
bringing the user in at an experimental stage of a potentially upcoming commercial solution.
More concretely, we want to learn:
Which kind of real-time information and what kind of functionality do the user want to
have accessible in their data ski goggles?
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How can optimized usability and user experience be designed?
How is the users’ general technology acceptance for data ski goggles?
How do users use the provided functionalities?
How could such a service being implemented in a ski resorts ecosystem?
What is the performance of real-time services based on a 3G network on the slopes and
how can it be improved?
2.2. Experiment Procedure A co-creation approach will be applied to integrate all the relevant actors and stakeholders (users,
venue operator, technology provider, …) into the conception, implementation and evaluation of
this experiment. To maximize the impact of the proposed technical solutions end-users and
stakeholders will be continuously involved in the development process.
The focus will be on the potential users. In order to maximize Quality of Experience the
potential and real users will actively take part in the experimental & explorative prototyping
within an agile development process. Thus, a four step methodology will be applied. First, two
focus groups will be conducted to discuss user requirements, screen designs and interaction
concepts. This is the basis for the conception of the Smart Ski Goggles software and a
representative online survey. This second step examines the user requirements on a
representative level and will serve as a basis for a detailed target group specification for the pilot
runs. Furthermore, this step will provide important data for the scientific analysis of the
experiment.
To examine the user experience in a real-life setting, two pilot tests will take place at the venue of
Schladming ski resort and with a representative number of participants. From the first pilot
results the revised prototype software and final release of the Smart Ski Goggles software will be
derived for the second and final pilot test. During the pilots the participants will be shortly
briefed about the system setup und provided features. Additionally the smartphone app is being
installed on the user’s smartphone. After that they are equipped with the data goggles and can
use the hardware freely for the whole pilot run (from one hour to a whole day). At the end of the
pilot run the users are asked to fill in a feedback form within the smartphone app to gain
quantitative feedback. After that there is a short group discussion to capture verbal qualitative
feedback.
All four steps of the co-creation process are tightly linked together to gain a maximum of valid
insight. Figure 1 shows an overview of the different stages and their timing.
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Figure 1: Experiment Schedule (see WP/D4.10)
2.3. Background The venue partner (Schladming) has hosted the Alpine Skiing World Championship in February
2013 and thus became well-known to many new potential guests. So, the ski resort wants to
maintain its reputation as modern winter sports destination and ever new services for its guests.
This fits perfectly with our project, so it is supported in a very good way from our local partners
in Schladming.
2.4. Assumptions and Preconditions We assume the participants are regularly skiing on slopes (at least once a year), have an Android
smartphone and are downloading apps from time to time. To make sure, these assumptions are
being met, we will select the participants based on these parameters.
Furthermore, we assume there is broad 3G coverage, thus we know that it will not be 100% and
there will be some drop outs. So, we will implement a caching mechanism to download real-time
data on a regular basis (every x minutes).
Regarding the network connectivity at the lift entrances we assume that we have a LAN/WLAN
connection which we can use to send the light barrier and video analysis data to the backend
server. This was already confirmed by the lift operator (Planai-Hochwurzen Bergbahnen
GmbH).
2.5. Parameters There will be three different data sources for analyzing the waiting time at the lifts. First, the data
from the turnstiles, second the data from the light barriers und third the data from the video
analysis. We will compare data from these different sources to understand which of these data
sources (or a combination of them) are most useful for presenting the waiting time at the lifts to
the user.
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2.6. Constraints We are aware that we are conducting the experiment in one specific ski resort
(Schladming/Planai), which means that we have to adapt the experiment software to its specifics
(e.g. available POIs on the slope, available resort geometry for navigation, etc.). As a result, some
experiment results might not be able to be easily transferred to another ski resort and vice versa
some needs and specifics from other ski resorts cannot be experimented within this project.
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3. Ethics and Privacy
To achieve the research goals we have to analyze the usage data (Which functionality is used in
which context?) during the experiment runs done during pilots 1 and 2. Thus, we have to log
which functionalities the testers use. Furthermore, to analyze the location context of the usage
behaviour we have to log the users GPS position on the slopes. The GPS position is of special
importance for the integrated navigation feature.
Of course, the participation as tester is voluntary. We will acquire the participants with the help
of our venue partner, through an open call for testers (e.g. via our social media channels) and the
use of our Living Lab database, where we have stored hundreds of contacts to potential test
persons. In general, the participants for the pilot runs are random people, but must be 18 years
or older and they will be selected to fit to the target group we identified through our online
panel. Every tester has to sign a written consent, in which we explain how the data collected
during the experiment will be used. Only participants who sign this consent are allowed to take
part in the experiment. We will collect only as much personal data (name, gender, age) and
contact details (telephone number, e-mail address) as we need to organize the experiment runs
during pilot 1 and 2 and to have some security that the ski goggles are not being stolen. The
participants will return the goggles after the end of every test run. The conditions for
participating in the experiment are that the participants should ski on the slopes one time per
year minimum, possess an Android smartphone and have already downloaded some apps.
The collected data will be stored anonymously. This means in the collected data there will only
be a tester ID like e.g. 'sgg-pilot1-tester01'. The real name of the participant will not be part of
stored and analysed data. The collected data will be stored in real-time on the data goggles and
after the pilot conduction be transferred to the project server of Smart Ski Goggles which is
located in our headquarters in Graz/Austria. Some of the collected data will be transferred to the
backend server for the purpose of real-time monitoring of the experiment (through ECC). The
backend server is also part of our IT infrastructure in our headquarters. The processed data
contains all functionality calls through the tester together with a timestamp and location
information (GPS).
The analysis of the collected data will only be done by evolaris. No data will be given to any third
party. The recorded data will be deleted after the experiment has ended and all necessary
analytics for related dissemination activities (e.g. publications) are finished. We might use a totally
anonymized set of this data for later detail research.
The servers where the data are stored is located in our headquarters in Graz/Austria in a locked
server room. Only dedicated employees of evolaris have access to this room. The access on a
software level is only possible by evolaris employees with their login.
To analyze the amount of people waiting at the lift entrance we use video cameras to capture a
real-time view of the queue. This real-time video will instantly be analyzed by a computer at the
lift entrance. No video material will be stored. Furthermore we use data from the turnstiles and
light barriers at the lift entrances. Both sources provide completely non-personal data.
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The notification to the Austria DPA will be filled due to the processing of personal data (like
names and GPS location) and that the DP law of Austria will be complied with.
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4. Experiment Design
4.1. Requirements The ECC should enable the near real-time monitoring of important experiment parameters (e.g.
status of 3G connectivity). The SCC should support the project in providing a filtered stream of
Twitter tweets (e.g. with the hashtag "#Schladming"). Here it is important that not too many
tweets are pushed into the system (e.g. max 1 per hour). The AVCC should provide the
functionality to analyse a real-time video stream to find out whether few or many people are
waiting in front of a lift entrance. The initial requirement that we need the PCC to administer the
POIs on the slope is no longer valid, as we have to use the POI management by the routing
provider, so that the navigation feature is working properly.
The following metrics should be implemented (with support of the ECC as far as possible):
QoS
o Speed (Is the participant in movement, does the application work?)
o Battery Level (Overall power consumption by application)
o 3G network reception level (Service availability)
o Round trip time per feature call (Service performance measurement)
QoE
o Application Feature Call (To see which features are used where and when)
o Application Feature Usage Duration (How long is a certain feature used?)
o GPS Position (To send location-dependent notifications)
o Average user speed per slope (Detection of user tiredness)
o Retrieved/Navigated to/Completed POIs per hour (Evaluate acceptance of
navigation)
o Time between reception and reading of notification (Analysis of usage behavior)
To install and maintain the video cameras and light beams we need some support from the lift
operator. This is being organized by our venue partner Schladming 2030. Furthermore, we need
the written agreement from the lift operator that we are allowed to use the real-time SkiData data
for this experiment.
For Pilot 1 we need 10-15 participants and for the Pilot 2 we need 40-50 participants. The
recruiting will be done through our venue partner, an open call (poster, flyer, social media, …)
and our evolaris living lab, in which we have a database of hundreds of people potentially being
interested in taking part in studies. All participants will have to sign a written consent form. The
participants will get a day pass for the ski resort as incentive or a voucher for a meal and drinks.
4.2. System Architecture The Smart Ski Goggles System consists of three components. First, the Oakley Airwave is
defined as the frontend. It will be used to display real-time information, which is gathered from
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the integrated sensors and from the attached smart phone. The application running on the
Oakley Airwave is referred to as the client application (see Figure 2).
The attached smartphone runs the Smart Ski Goggles Gateway application. The Smart Ski
Goggles Gateway application is responsible for connecting to the EXPERIMEDIA components
and exchange data from the client application to the Smart Ski Goggles Backend. The application
is labelled as the gateway application.
The Smart Ski Goggles backend processes information from number different sources such as
weather service, resort information service, and navigation information provider. In addition, it
receives lift utilization statistics from external components like video cameras and embedded IR-
beams sensors. The lift utilization statistics is analysed and used for providing lift capacity
utilization information to the clients. Finally, the Smart Ski Goggles backend will be used for
pushing notifications to the client. Examples will be urgent weather warnings, social updates like
new tweets, hospitality offers, or unplanned lift open/close events.
The Smart Ski Goggles backend also provides an interface for administration. This is labelled as
the admin cockpit. In the admin cockpit, the administrators can configure hospitality offers, and
send broadcast notifications to all connected users. These notifications can be weather warnings,
hospitality notifications, event notifications, and tweet notification. Unplanned lift open / close
events are automatically propagated to all connected clients.
Figure 2: Smart Ski Goggles Architecture
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The Oakley Airwave is connected to the attached smart phone by Bluetooth. It uses a custom
developed message protocol to request information and receive the related responses. The
gateway application also communicates with the EXPERIMEDIA components and the Smart
Ski Goggles Backend server over 3G cellular networks. The Smart Ski Goggles Backend server is
connected via a high speed internet connection to the internet.
The Smart Ski Goggles experiment will be using three EXPERIMEDIA components. It will be
using the ECC for monitoring activity, the SCC for connecting users to social networks, and the
AVCC for video analysis of the lift utilization. Initially it was also intended to use PCC for
retrieving POIs. However, during inspection of PCC it was revealed that the interface does not
meet our requirements for saving POIs. In addition, the navigation provider also has a set of
POIs. Due to technical reasons the navigation provider cannot use external POIs. As a result the
PCC component will not be integrated in the experiment.
Besides the EXPERIMEDIA components the Smart Ski Goggles experiment will be using lift
cameras from Joanneum Research (JRS) to accumulate lift capacity statistics. Furthermore, it will
instruct an electrician from Schladming area to buy IR-beam sensors and embedded Arduino
Yun boards and deploy them at the relevant lift entrance areas.
The lift cameras will be connected to a processing node provided by the Smart Ski Goggles
experiment, which runs the JR video analysing software. The processing node and the Arduino
Yun boards will be using the W-LAN network hosted by the Schladming lift providers.
4.3. Content Lifecycle An integrated notification system provides the skier with information which might be of interest
for his skiing trip. The content therefore is mostly created through integration of automated
services, such as event information informing skiers about current events within the next days at
the skiing area, actual twitter feeds, weather warnings and up-to-date information about opening
hours and status of lifts. The latter notifies the skier if a particular lift is going to be closed or
opened throughout the course of the day. In addition, chalet owners are having the possibility to
promote special meal offers when there are any new or updated offers. This is being done
manually in the Smart Ski Goggles backend (Admin Cockpit). Basic information about the chalet
is per default integrated into the Smart Ski Goggles software and can be administered via the
backend.
The integrated weather service not only notifies the skier about weather warnings, the skier also
gets automatic updates of todays weather and a forecast. Besides textual weather preview the
service provides the application with graphical icons for each weather status, the current
temperature and the wind force.
Furthermore, the skier gets updates about lift information about all available lifts within the
skiing area including name, opening hours and type of lift. Except the time table, all other
content is provided automatically via available services; the time table has to be integrated
manually sourced from the Planai's website. The main feature here is the approximate waiting
time at the lift entrance. The data is generated by algorithms which make use of light barriers,
video cameras and access data from the turnstiles in the waiting area of the ski lift. The result is
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automatically provided to the Smart Ski Goggles software. Additional resort information like
available slopes and related information are sourced through automated services. The time table
of the local bus shuttle service, sourced from related website and inserted manually, is displayed
in the software as well.
The integration of a routing service allows the application to process and display navigational
hints when navigating to a desired target. By reading out the distance for each section of a slope
the Smart Ski Goggles software is able to provide the user, besides textual output, with a
graphical representation (arrows) of navigational hints. Furthermore, the application anchors
multimedia content to physical landmarks or objects on a slope and provides pictures or videos
viewable in the ski goggle based on the skiers current location ('digital graffiti').
Finally, basic information about the skiers current speed as well as the maximum and average
speed of a finished track are displayed. The altitude of a track is also available to the skier.
Through an admin cockpit which is used as a central interface to the backend system, the
processing of data and managing of content can be done easily. This includes the configuration
of notifications like special chalet offers or the manual creation of new types of notifications,
upload and allocating pictures or videos to selected points of interest, and inserting the opening
hours of each available lift and the time table of the local bus shuttle service. Thus, the
connection of information service providers through standardized web interfaces allows for a
smooth and error-free integration.
The features and described content above is provided via a real-time application available on the
Oakley Airwave ski goggle. To establish the ability to provide real-time information the Smart
Ski Goggles application is connected to the Internet via a mobile application on a smartphone.
Therefore the user is forced to carry the smartphone during skiing in order to establish an
internet connection. The graphical user interface is developed for the special requirements of a
built-in heads-up display application within the Oakley Airwave ski goggle and the framing
condition of the available input device (wristband with buttons for
left/right/top/down/select/back).
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5. Plan for Implementation
The software conception has started in October and will be finished in December. Of course,
there will be some minor updates based on findings during our on-site tests and feedback from
Pilot 1.
The implementation of software has started in November and a first version of the software has
to be finished before Pilot 1. Pilot 1 is planned to be conducted end of January. As in the last
week there is a huge event in Schladming ("Night Race") it might be that the Pilot 1 is postponed
by one week to have all needed local resources available. The participants of Pilot 1 will be
interviewed after their test runs.
As soon as the resort is fully open to the public the lift entrances can be visited and a plan can be
made, how light barriers and video cameras have to be installed. The visit will be in early
December and the installation has to be done in the first half of January at the latest. In the best
case the installation can stay there the whole winter, until Pilot 2 is finished.
After the Pilot 1 the software will be updated based on the finding during the Pilot and other
testing to version 2 which will be the software for Pilot 2. Pilot 2 will be conducted in late March
and consist of 5 consecutive days in which participants will test the software a whole day. After
the test run the participants have to fill out a digital questionnaire (via the smartphone) and 10-15
of them additionally are being interviewed. So, apart from the quantitative data measured via the
ECC, there will be a lot of qualitative feedback from the participants as well.
After the Pilot 2 the analysis of all collected data during the experiment will start and be finished
until end of May.
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6. Conclusion
The experiment will provide us with deep insight how data googles with real-time information
will be used by ski tourists on the slopes. We will not only know which features are being used
and how intensive, furthermore we gain insights into the questions which QoS is necessary for
such kind of outdoor real-time services. In general this will help understanding in which
directions future research of real-time data provided by the internet and consumed via data
googles must be undertaken to enable the full potential of the future internet.
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