Monica Milani

Seeing the self in the washing machine: the deep affordance of 2.0 philosophy in the household appliance domain

The acceleration of rhythm of everyday life requires efficiency and flexibility in daily routines. The real expectations and needs of people concerning intelligent home devices should be carefully researched. The project Moon 2.0 by Indesit Company presents alternative ways of producing household appliance services developing a 2.0 Human Machine Interface and programs setting unit for washing machines, totally manageable by smart phones or I-Phones. Users cannot explicitly control washing machines when they would like to use a feature combination that has not application in a current washing program. The application of the Web 2.0 philosophy to the washing machine let the user the possibility to directly control all the existing features of the washing programs and to decide time by time how many programs their machine should have, with regards to the transparency and interactivity concepts of the ambient intelligence. Moon 2.0 should not be confused with an hand held personal home assistant capable of controlling a wide range of electronic home devices. The smart phone behaves the intelligence of the washing machine and offers the user endless customisation possibilities.