Thanks to telephone, instant messaging and video calls, it is now very easy for people to communicate with each other at any time, even over long distances. However, not least during the coronavirus pandemic, it has become clear that although these classic remote communication channels are well suited to pragmatic communication for specific occasions, such as conversations at work or agreements with family members or friends, they can only replace face-to-face contact and interaction with loved ones to a limited extent. An important reason for this is the fact that the feeling of social closeness to close people is also created through non-verbal communication such as touching, as well as through mutual presence even in moments when you don't have ‘something to talk about’, but simply enjoy the presence of the other person.

As part of the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR, formerly BMBF) announcement ‘Closeness over distance - enabling interpersonal connection with interactive technologies’, the ToCaro project has set itself the goal of developing the so-called ToCaros, with which two spatially separated people can communicate with each other non-verbally.The ToCaros can deform to transmit haptic touch and also transmit heat and light to the ToCaros paired with them on the other side, and have three uses:

• The simple and fast transmission of ‘I'm thinking of you’ messages,
• enriching traditional long-distance communication with non-verbal communication when the ToCaros are held and used during a phone call or video call, and
• sharing ‘silent moments’, i.e. conveying presence and a feeling of closeness even in situations in which people are not actively interacting with each other

In the ToCaro project, HFC is not only coordinating the network and supporting the participatory development of the ToCaros in all phases from a human-centred, psychologically sound perspective, but is also responsible for the iterative usage tests and the final field study, in which the fully functional ToCaro prototypes are used and tested by real users over a period of weeks.

The project will run from April 2024 to April 2026 and is being carried out together with our partners from the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence DFKI, the Chair of Factory Automation and Production Systems FAPS at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg and C&S Computer und Software GmbH.

Further information on the project can be found in the BMFTR project profile.