Close Friends makes the density of connected devices around you tangible: speakers, TVs, computers, phones, all of them constantly broadcasting, mostly unnoticed.
The name comes from the way Wi-Fi devices behave, constantly sending out handshakes, announcing themselves to anyone who listens. Like friends who always wave, whether you wave back or not.
The device scans continuously for Wi-Fi enabled devices. Every 10 minutes the display refreshes. A vendor blacklist filters out access points, leaving only the devices themselves. The results are mapped into three zones (close, near, and in reach) visualised as a density. Close is a dense, hatched polygon. Near is a looser outline around it. In reach dissolves into scattered points.
In a school or office, where almost everyone carries at least one Wi-Fi enabled device, the display becomes an indirect measure of how many people are around.
The display is a 7.5" three-colour e-paper screen driven by an ESP8266. Thin and silent, it hangs there like a picture, slowly updating.
