Sensor Salon --

Sensor Salon is a project that proposes a new service model for making and customizing of wearable technology. Inspired by rituals of self preservation, the project imagines a physical sensor nail shop that combines nail art culture, salon processes, and DIY lab business models to explore new services that support the growing population of wearable devices and personalization strategies.

The hypothetical Pop-Up Sensor Nail Salon offers people the ability to personalize their wearable technology with the help of trained technicians. The shop combines different processes and fields, like Manicurists, User Experience Designers, Developers, Electrical Engineers, Industrial Designers, Therapists, Physicians, and Data Analysts. The merging of these roles creates a service that enables a person to augment their wearable from the digital to physical, from how it behaves to how it looks. The result is an incredibly vast amount of customization opportunities. Customized interactions and personalized sensor behaviors embedded onto the nail can take on complex roles depending on the needs of the person who is wearing them and the expertise of the Sensor Nail Shop. Depending on the person’s goals and desires, the installed wearable can augment their body and behavior for weeks at a time.

The temporary sensor extensions allow individuals to try many wearable strategies created in collaboration with the shop’s staff. The life of the person and their wearable would be documented along the way, generating a narrative that reflects the person’s physical, digital, and mental transformations. The person’s experience will change and evolve with each trip to the shop and relationship between the wearer and technicians grows.