Gus

Gus are windchimes for the urban dweller. City living puts people with different backgrounds, preferences, and schedules within feet of each other. In this sort of environment noise is at an excess and silence at a premium. Traditional windchimes broadcast their sound to all around, and don’t allow a user to opt out of hearing them. In an urban environment putting windchimes outside your window will probably make you the most unpopular neighbor, and earn you some complaints. Gus solves that problem by changing the interaction of windchimes from broadcast to opt-in while maintaining their connection to the actual wind in your location. Gus has a silent wind sensing portion that you can place either outside or on your windowsill. To listen to Gus simply open up the widget on your computer and you are able to hear the chimes as they react to the wind right outside your window. Gus uses the wireless Xbee protocol to transmit wind information from the outdoor sensors to the computer where real recorded chime sounds are played in response to the wind.

Gus was created by myself and Amanda Bernsohn.