Match Code

The key message of the project

The project’s partners want to give people the power to use technology as a tool to rediscover human interaction. They believe that what defines us as humans, developed during evolution, may actually make us happy. Communication, respect, and love.

Match Code is not a virtual place to chat or share pictures. It aims to get people close to each other in presence by following a code of light and haptic sensation that feels like an accelerated heartbeat when we get close to our soul mate.

The idea behind the project

The concept was inspired by the problem of safety in nightclubs.

Their design is a wearable accessory that can facilitate, support, and encourage relationships between people in social contexts: a concert, a club, a discotheque, a venue.

Studying the issue of communication among individuals in their modern culture, they realized that the problem has deepened with social distancing and digitally mediated relations.

They want Match Code to encourage consensual relationships in their presence, avoiding misunderstandings, antisocial and unwanted behaviors.

Match Code is a wearable, conceived according to the principle of human-centered design, digitally realized with an integrated IoT device, customisable through a Web App.

Through actuators that send signals to the wearer, Match Code enables the notification of readiness for social interaction: having a drink together, making new acquaintances, dancing.

The connected app is useful only to find people with the same interests; the bracelet is voluntarily without a screen so that communication will only take place between the two (or more) humans using it.

How does the project contribute to the New European Bauhaus Initiative?

Match Code is now only a prototype built with the best materials and an ethical supply chain of artisans, just as a real “Made in Italy” product is. The device is developed with an open source board, and all collected data is encrypted.

The beauty of the design is a mix of comfort and technology, minimal but well refined. Future production could be limited to a few products for rent or on demand urban manufacturing.

Inclusiveness is at the center of their project: everyone is free to enter the Match Code as it is not a binary accessory. The web app information part is open to all sexual orientations, and its final goal is not to match only romantic relationships but also friendships, open relationships, and much more.