If you live far away from your lover, this project could make you feel the presence and the emotional state of your partner without making voice calls.

El Niño is the prototype of a set of physical avatars for casual communication built on Arduino Uno. The system designed by a duo of designer of the Faculty of Arts & Design, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, helps enhancing the emotional connection and awareness between people in long distance relationships by providing a low-threshold channel for exchanging simple messages:

Two stationary anthropomorphic robots are used as tangible user interfaces that can mimic human emotions by displaying symbolic facial expressions on low-resolution screens, in order to reflect the emotional state of the user. The system allows its users to casually express their emotions over a distance through dedicated networked objects. El Niño is currently a functional work-in-progress prototype. The system was built and designed using a combination of open source hardware and a 3D-printed enclosure.

Find out more on the project on Weng Xinyu website.