Problem

Imagine the following scenarios:

1. You are in an executive meeting, and it comes time for you to present your proposal. Normally, you are always conscious of turning off your phone before any solemn situation. Little did you know, you forgot to turn the ring tune off this morning, after a phone software upgrade, and your mobile phone is set to ring on call. As you start your presentation in front of a panel of VIPs, your mother calls.

1. Your good friend, Joe, is very aware of the rudeness of phone ring tunes interrupting conversation, so he always keep the phone on vibrate-only (to prevent himself from even forgetting to silent the phone in important events). One late night, as you return home from a distant and unfamilar part of the city, you realized that the train had stopped running. You tried calling Joe, your only friend with a car, hoping that he could give you a ride home. But he was sound asleep, and his phone, while on, was set to vibrate-only. Joe had set the phone in a basket of ripe bananas, so he could not even hear the vibration. You waited for hours in the cold night, until the morning train started running again. Because of the wait in the cold night, you were badly ill for 3 weeks.

The two situations are completely opposite: In one instance, the phone is set to ring when you would rather it be silent; in the other instance, the phone is silent when you could use the notification. However, both situations are casused by the same underlying problem, namely, the inability of the phone to sense what situation the call is for, and alert the owner in an appropriate form.

Solution Design

Basic Design

Intelligent Design

Sophisticated Design

Origin of Idea