Karan Ahuja, Sujeath Pareddy, Robert Xiao, Mayank Goel and Chris Harrison have created LightAnchors — a new technology for AR anchoring and data transmission using existing light sources such as LEDs and light bulbs.

Whereas typical AR solutions require the manual placement of physical markers, LightAnchors can take advantage of the LEDs already found in, for example, most appliances. And by rapidly blinking that LED, kind of like Timex Datalink watches in the 90s, which used flashes from a CRT to receive its data, the LightAnchors team have created a glue gun that transmits its temperature, a parking meter that transmits rate info, and a security camera that broadcasts its own privacy policy. A Teensy 3.2 is used to modulate light sources at 120 FPS using the built-in DAC, which is imperceptible to most humans. Learn more on Chris’s web site, in the original paper, or in the video below.