Ever wanted light to follow you around, like the overhead stage lighting in the theater? Well, this might not be too far off now that technologist and designer Nan Zhao has created Halo, a wearable light that goes wherever you go. Created for her PhD program at MIT Media Lab, Zhao’s Halo is designed to explore how light can “go along with the moment, the activity, our feelings, and our outfit”.To create Halo, Zhan outfitted a lightweight aluminum ring with LED lights that frame the user’s head, illuminating their face and shoulders, and can be molded to fit the user’s head at different angles. It also comes preprogrammed with a range of lighting compositions designed to make users look happy, sad, evil, angry, passionate, and so on.
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Beyond that, Halo is controllable via a mobile app running Bluetooth. Users can also design their own patterns by using the Halo software to place virtual light sources in the space around the wearable.“Different than architectural lighting this personal lighting device aims to illuminate and present its user,” Zhan explains on the Halo website. “Halo changes the wearer's appearance with the ease of a button click, similar to adding a filter to a photograph. It can also change one's view, brightening up a rainy day, or coloring a gray landscape. Halo can react to activities and adapt based on context. It is a responsive window between the wearer and her surroundings.”
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