Hacker creates IKEA mood lamp that responds to your emotions

Italian developer Vittorio Cuculo has managed to create a lamp which changes colour according to your mood when it’s linked up to facial recognition software on his computer.

Described as a ‘Natural Interaction System’, it works via a webcam and OpenCV image processing, which both work to track certain features such as eyebrows, lips, eyes and chin. This is then translated into an ‘emotion’ which, using an Arduino Duemilanoverduino microcontroller inside the lamp, causes it to change colour.

Cuculo’s video demonstrates how the lamp’s colour corresponds with different (emphasised!) ‘emotions’ – it turns blue when it registers his downturned mouth, and at his ‘surprised’ expression, it switches to purple. When he’s smiling, it glows pink.

Cuculo states in his paper on the project that facial expressions are ‘particularly relevant’ because they play ‘a fundamental role in nonverbal communication between human beings.