Exploration 03
Where to put the hub
Concept
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Room scanning
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EE app · Aimee
The idea
Some questions can’t be answered in words
Where you put your hub is one of the most consequential decisions a broadband customer makes, and it’s usually made in the first ten minutes of moving in, by whoever is holding the box, based on where the socket happens to be.
The honest answer has always been a set of rules of thumb: somewhere central, off the floor, out of a cupboard, away from the microwave. All true, none of it specific to the house the customer is actually standing in. But the phone in their hand can map that house. So this exploration asks what happens when the assistant stops offering advice and starts giving an answer: a spot, marked on your own floor plan, based on your own walls.
Scan, map, place: the floor plan draws itself as the customer walks the house, then the recommendation lands as a marked spot on their own layout, followed by tips for whenever things move.
Key moves
01
Answer a spatial question spatially
The output isn’t a sentence describing where to put the hub, it’s a glowing spot on a drawing of the customer’s own home. Nobody has to translate “somewhere central, ideally elevated” into a decision about their actual hallway, which is the step where generic advice usually falls apart.
02
Make the assistant an instrument, not just an interface
This is the move that interests me most. Every other exploration here has the assistant working with information EE already holds. Here it goes and gathers something new, using the phone’s sensors to collect evidence the customer couldn’t have supplied themselves, because you can’t see where your walls block a signal. The assistant stops being a way to ask questions and becomes a way to find things out.
03
Draw the map as they walk
The floor plan builds live during the scan rather than appearing at the end. It’s doing three jobs at once: proving the thing is working, showing which rooms have been covered, and making a slightly odd request (walk around your house waving your phone) feel purposeful rather than embarrassing.
04
Let the customer say when it’s done
Finished my scan is a button rather than something the system decides. Homes vary far too much to guess at completeness, and a scan that declares itself finished while the customer is still halfway up the stairs is worse than one that simply waits to be told.
05
Leave them with rules as well as an answer
The tips carousel afterwards (don’t put it in a cupboard, and so on) covers what the recommendation can’t. The marked spot solves today, in this house, with the furniture where it currently is. The rules travel: they still apply when someone rearranges the living room or moves out entirely.
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© Harry Thorpe · 2026
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