how can we give somebody a hug if they're not near us? often this impulse will drive us to call the loved-one to 'say hello', or send a quick text message but does this capture our emotion? The problems that I see in this exchange are these... More often than not, calls to our mobiles catch us at the wrong time. Either we're in an elevator, or a meeting, or having a conversation that we don't want to interrupt. This has a psychological affect on our attitudes towards the answered call. If the call is answered, and even if we only wanted to simply express that we were thinking about the other person, we get caught in chit-chat. An expressive conversation ("hi, i'm thinking about you") quickly turns to an instructive one ("can you grab some staples on the way home?"). Also, this interaction is absent of touch - a key form of emotional communication.

hugms is a device designed for sending someone you care about a hug using your mobile phone.

once hugms is connected to your mobile phone all you have to do is send it the phone number of the person you'd like to hug and then squeeze. sensors inside the device read how long and how hard you have squeezed and will format a text message based on your hug.

for example, a long squeeze would look like

'hhhhhhuuuuuuuuuuggggggg'

while a short and hard squeeze would look like

'hhHHUUUUUUugg'

hugms also communicates with light and color. the strength of the squeeze is mapped to a change in color. if the person you're hugging also has a hugms, then your message will also trigger the same color change. finally, your loved one can return the hug to you, either by squeezing their hugms or just replying to the text message. once received your hugms will glow a warm color, giving you the knowledge that you're being hugged in return.

hugms connects to your phone over bluetooth. once paired it can be used any time to send hugs to whomever you choose. the device is small and can easily be carried around with you. here it is, step-by-step: