The Hug Shirt (F+R Hugs) is a shirt that allows people to exchange the physical sensation of a hug over distance. Embedded in the shirt there are sensors that feel the strength of the touch, the skin warmth and the heartbeat rate of the sender and actuators that recreate the sensation of touch, warmth and emotion of the hug to the shirt of the distant loved one.The system is very simple: a Hug Shirt (Bluetooth with sensors and actuators), a Bluetooth java enabled mobile phone with the Hug Me java software running (that understands what the sensors are communicating), and on the other side another phone and another shirt.
When touching the sensors on your shirt your mobile receives the data (hug pressure, skin temperature, heartbeat rate, time you are hugging for, and the name of the person you want to hug) and delivers it to the other person. If the other person or the sender doesn’t have the shirt she can just send an SMS text message, and it will be transformed into a hug! If you don’t need a hug you can switch it off.