The Future of Connectivity

Here’s my wild prediction for the “smart” future: our smartphone will be replaced by three alternative devices – a watch (or similar wristwear), home assistant, and AR/VR glasses. The home assistant is essentially your digital twin (call it Alexa, Siri, Cortana, or another name of your choosing). For the purposes of this analysis, we’ll name your digital twin Sam. Sam will be your right-hand man. He will understand everything about you – more than anyone in the physical world could fully understand. Before we dig deeper into Sam, let me continue by explaining the capabilities of each device…

Let’s begin with the watch. Personally, I believe that from a design perspective, Fitbit has the best “smart” watch on the market due its minimalistic design. I believe consumers will continue to wear a watch similar to Fitbit’s design (ideally the size of a rubber band), which will include the following functionalities:

1. Monitor your heart rate

2. Track your health diagnostics (weight, calorie and nutritional intake, stress, quality of sleep)

3. Pay-as-you-go based on your profile and associated payment cards (useful in places such as stores, restaurants, and public transportation)

4. Daily vibrate reminders or alarms

5. Notifications of incoming calls or messages (voice messages will become the norm, and calls will be answered through your earbuds)

6. Send commands to your home assistant (Sam)

Now, the key for our wristwear is to maintain a minimalistic design. Therefore, screens will either be eliminated or solely used to show the time. All data collected by your wristwear will be sent directly to Sam. Also, Sam will be able to respond to any of your queries or commands through your earbuds. The earbuds will be used as the main communication medium between humans and digital assistants. Here’s an example of how I foresee our relationship evolving with our digital twins. After a tiring workout, you want to figure out what type of meal would be most beneficial to your current nutritional needs. Sam, in response, scours through your recent personal data to relay the message that you should consider eating a protein-heavy meal and lay off the salt. Also, Sam recommends restaurants in the neighborhood based on your current location and previous ratings. Giving out ratings to restaurants, stores, and other public spaces would never be easier. Rather than typing your opinion on Yelp, you would simply tell Sam your experiences who would then transcribe it into written form for others to read (including other digital twins). Simply put, your wristwear is a personal data collector for Sam to capitalize for your own benefits.

Next, let’s move onto your digital twin. Sam will allow you to become more efficient by facilitating your demands. Some of Sam’s capabilities will be the following:

1. Order food/supplies from stores

2. Recall the daily news

3. Read an audio book

4. Play music

5. Control home devices (e.g. lighting, doors, windows, AC/heat, etc.)

6. Record notes (sent remotely from your earbuds)

7. Send off emails

8. Facilitate phone calls to contacts

Of course, this is a very preliminary list, but the key component is Sam’s capabilities to interpret and act upon our demands. Each major tech company appears to be continuously improving their digital assistant technology. The differences, however, appear to be that Apple will play you music, Google wants to own all of your information/data, and Amazon wants to sell your something. Do we really have to choose? Ideally, our devices would incorporate all of these functionalities.

Lastly, I want to touch upon the use of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) glasses. Google appeared to be the first company to identify this consumer market through their release of Google Glass, which gained more negative attention than positive (see Glassholes). Maybe Google was too early to the market. Over time, however, I believe more consumers will be receptive to AR/VR glasses, especially as the technology improves and price point declines. Hopefully they’ll be a bit more discrete than the unattractive Google Glass. Here are a few of the ways I see AR/VR glasses to be useful in our everyday life:

1. Watching sporting events (for a fee, of course)

2. Experiencing public art

3. Interactive gaming experience

4. Learning tools (surgery practice for doctors, immersive history lessons, etc.)

5. Looking over social media

6. Reading websites or books

7. Explore the world (guided National Park tours, walking tours through various cities, etc.)

I’d like to point out one very significant fact about my ideal technological world – no screens are involved. Will tech companies approve of such changes, or would they rather keep us scrolling? Ultimately, it ought to be the consumer’s decision and I can only hope that we will realize the negative implications of spending countless hours being stuck in an endless scroll. We’ve all seen the couple at a restaurant glued to their phones and hardly talking to one another. I hope we choose to change that by finding alternatives to screens, which will hopefully facilitate more energetic social gatherings.

So, what do you think? Are you ready to part ways with your cell phone?