With a few final tweaks to LiveSpark’s custom iPad application we’re ready to test it in the lab. Here’s a video of what our Flame Elements will be doing inside the Chandelier.

Some great coverage from the Bay Area’s Fox affiliate KTVU.  They came to the workshop for a behind-the-scenes look at the LiveSpark Chandelier, our new iPad application, and how we make our digitally controlled fire.

http://www.ktvu.com/video/23273394/

And there’s a slideshow with some nice stills:

http://www.ktvu.com/slideshow/entertainment/23273032/detail.html

I met with Savant Home Automation who make a very powerful and extensible home control system. And they even have a brand new interface for iPad. In essence, we have to create a configuration file in their Blueprint software and presto you can add a LiveSpark fire device to their interface.

Now they have a lot of buttons, pretty much echoing what you’d find on a remote control. But I think that’s not going far enough. To control a fire device, like the LiveSpark Chandelier, you probably don’t want a set of buttons or sliders. Even with multi-touch that would only let you control just a few flames at a time, and the patterns of fire probably wouldn’t be very pretty or interesting, just localized pulses.

In designing our iPad application, we started with the concept that no matter how you touch the interface, beautiful flame patterns should be the result. And of course, we want to leverage multi-touch. What we came up with is two simple controls, a 12-pointed star and an intensity slider.

Control the LiveSpark Chandelier with an iPad

When touching the circles at the tips of the star, and individual flame can be controlled. As the touch moves toward the center, more of the flames neighbors light and increase their intensity. In the middle of the star, all flames are lit, and their intensity can be adjusted simultaneously with slider.  There’s also a 3D model of the chandelier which shows the glowing flowers in red along with the star, and the real fire.  Of course this takes two paragraphs to explain, but all becomes pretty obvious after a few seconds in your hand.

Stay tuned for an exciting announcement about where you can try out the iPad interface and see the chandelier light up in perfect time to your gestures.

Construction of the LiveSpark Chandelier is coming to a close after four months of industrial design, mechanical engineering, precision fabrication, flame testing, software implementation, and lots of Chinese food. Here’s a 3D visualization of the work as it has progressed.

Now we have the capability to control LiveSpark Flame Elements, including all our installations such as fireplaces, fire pits, torches, and our new chandelier via iPhone or iPod Touch. Here’s a quick demo. The latency is a bit high here but we think we can get that down considerably. Next step is to build a fancy interface for a sweet remote control. I think we should offer a free iPod Touch (or maybe even an iPad) with each fire installation we sell.