Smule’s Sonic Lighter is Almost Hot to the Touch

by Eric March on September 16, 2008 at 7:22 pm

I was contacted by a PR firm today who wanted to pass on word of a new App Store app called Sonic Lighter by newcomers SonicMule, or Smule as they are otherwise known. The virtual lighter arena hasn’t done a whole lot to try and impress; most of them were utter crap.  The only one that impressed me was iLightr because it was dynamic, interactive, and well-presented, if a little slow in the rendering department.  Frankly, I thought that was the pinnacle of artificial flame technology, but it looks like Sonic Mule is out to one-up Ubermind — and boy, have they.

Sonic Lighter takes the whole virtual lighter concept to whole new levels by offering not only a well-rendered virtual flame that is nicely interactive to the touch (and makes use of multitouch, even), reactive to the accelerometer, and faster than Ubermind’s respectable effort, but some unique features you wouldn’t expect:

• Through the use of its “sonic modem” you can spread the flame to other iPhones by holding your device near another iPhone.  (Obviously this only works on the iPhone)  “Sonic modem” sounds like a modern, modemless version of the vintage accoustic coupler from the early days of telecommunication where the iPhone sending the flame emits a tone that the receiving phone picks up and takes as a cue to ignite.

• A “Sonic Network”, which is a kind of social aspect that keeps track of who you’ve spread the flame to, and allows you to view a global map displaying who else around the world has been spreading the flame.  It’s not very interactive, but there it is.
• Reaction to wind.  This is probably the coolest feature.  If you blow on the microphone, the flame will react accordingly.  Blow hard, and the flame will extinquish.  Blow softer, and it will flicker and dance.
• Multiple flame types, from your traditional yellow lighter flame to billowing angry red flames or striated plasma-type stuff.

As virtual lighters go, Sonic Lighter definitely takes best of breed, and kudos to Smule for some innovative work here.  Interestingly, Sonic Lighter seems in part to be a kind of proof-of-concept intended to show off their ChucK audio programming language, and as such is only one in a line of applications they intend to write based around it.  It will be interesting to see what they come up with next.  Meanwhile, check out the demo video below, and if it looks like fun (and face it, it does), it’ll only set you back a thin buck, so you can grab it here (iTunes link).

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