Bench
Solar Powered Smart Urban Furniture For Pop-Up Infrastructure and Urban Sensing


The Bench provides free access to renewable energy to charge smart phones and small electronic devices in cities. This brings cities one step closer to fulfilling a key United Nations goal: sustainable energy access for all. The seats are off-grid and entirely autonomous. Fully integrated solar panels store energy in Li-ion batteries and can be accessed through weatherproof USB ports, allowing city dwellers to charge up anytime, anywhere. The batteries also power lighting and sensing technology inside the smart urban furniture. Each seat has an unique ID and are part of a network, providing solar power for people and big data for cities. The seats gather location-based data on air quality, currently focusing on pollution caused by vehicle exhaust as well as odor and smoke detection; the data will be open and freely-available. Cities typically measure air quality only at one or two locations. However, the levels vary significantly depending on traffic and other factors, and as a result, both policymakers and citizens are often uninformed. Public engagement with this sensor data has the potential to create a platform for real dialogue between cities and their citizens about the air we share.

Media:

Seat-e can recharge phones as users take a rest - Boston Globe

The New Urban Environment: Smarter. More Connected. Better Designed. - Design Exchange Boston

AMIT Media Lab's Seat-e Brings You a Phone Charger You Can Sit On - BostInno

MIT Energy Night 2013


Principle Investigator: Joseph Paradiso, Kent Larson

Research Group: Responsive Environments group and Changing Places at the MIT Media Lab

Research Assistants: Nan Zhao

Collaborator: Sandra Richter, Ines Gasset