With the smartphone acquiring increasingly widespread use, it is time for Sense to adopt the smartphone as a sensing and acting device. After all, phones like the iPhone and Android contain lots of sensors: an accelerometer, compass, microphone, proximity sensor, GPS, camera, light sensor and a touch sensor. Also, they can communicate over multiple channels: Bluetooth, GPRS, UMTS, EDGE and WiFi. And then there are the actuating modalities the smartphone offers: loudspeaker, vibration and screen. Modern smartphone functionalities only scratch the surface of the possibilities although the Android Market offers users the opportunity to develop their own application.

So how do we envision a smartphone embedded in the Sense landscape? Firstly, as your personal agent that keeps track of how other people can try to contact you. When you are on the phone, it makes no sense for other people to call you, and so your phone should be aware of this and advise other to for instance send you a text message instead. Your phone should notice whether it is carried around or not, and if it notices it has been forgotten, it could for instance relay incoming text messages to your e-mail address.

Aside from keeping track of one's reachability through various channels, a smarthphone could also function as a central part in a body-area network in many health care applications. Aided by sensors worn on the body it could keep track of vital signs or rate of activity, and directly give advice to a user, or automatically alert care givers in case of an emergency. Ideally, a smartphone would adapt to the specific conditions and habits of his user thus living up to the name it has been given.

Finally, the smartphone could function as an interface to or a part of a wireless sensor network. Pulling information from the network, serving as a gateway to the Internet, sharing its own sensor data and visualizing data for a human user are but some of the possibilities.

To start realizing all this, the Android developer's phone has become the center of attention for Steven, our youngest Sense-family member. In addition to exploration of the options, the Android has been married to the MyriaNode, as can be seen in the picture below. Though the start was somewhat hesitant from the side of the Android, the two are now comfortably exchanging information. It will be only a matter of months before the Android will find his first use as a personal track keeper of reachability. Also it is planned to be used in an Independent Living use case where it will assess the amount of physical exercise of elderly people and will advise the user to move more or less.