The Perfectly Connected Life
Imagine…
You wake up and say “Ok Google, read me my emails”, then follow up with “Delete that, archive this, forward that”. After you listened to the 50 emails you received while you were sleeping you then say, “Ok Google, morning routine”. All of a sudden, the coffee brews, the burners on the oven heat up, the shower turns on to the right temperature, hell; your dog gets walked by a drone.
I know, I know, fantasy. Sure, it is a little elaborate, but how far are we really from this? I am all about this lifestyle. I know my wife will never let me automate the stove, with the fear of burning down the house, but the other stuff seems logical. Every big company: Google, Apple, Amazon, even Facebook are getting their hands into this stuff in one way or another. Google is slated to launch Google Assistant, which will now have a hub for the house that will be connected to all your “things”, and know everything about you. Apple will have third party apps connecting to Siri, but the hub will be your iPhone. Amazon is the closest there, with Alexa on the Echo. Oh, and Facebook is allowing bots in messenger, which in theory can communicate to anything with the right bot and API. So is this dream lifestyle just fantasy, or is it closer to reality than we realize?
Artificial intelligence is getting closer to perfection and devices are getting more and more interconnected. When combining those two things, this future is right around the corner. We don’t even need artificial intelligence to do most of these things. A few if-then statements could do the job too.
We are a busy society. I know I am beyond busy and getting a few minutes of time back in a day just by getting a computer to do something rudimentary would be amazing! I am not saying there is a walking talking AI in my house, but just some easy and automated tasks to free up some time in the day would be helpful.
Ok, let’s get back to dreaming….
After your coffee is drank, your food is eaten, and the drone walks your dog, you leave your house. You get in your car, enable autopilot, and start doing some work while on your daily commute. By the time you are at your office, you have already organized your whole day and responded to all the emails that take up the first hour of your morning. Your arrival at work is simple: your car drops you off and you head inside, it then parks itself. After using your phone, watch, or NFC chip on your clothes to bypass security and door locks, you head right in. Since your location services know that you entered the building your desktop starts to boot up and your espresso is brewed and prepared just how you like it to crush your day. As your day progresses you recive cloud alerts to upcoming events and phone calls, not by annoying alerts on your phone, but by your virtual assistant that tells you over your office speakers, computer, watch, or another connected device that hasn’t been thought of yet. All of this happens while knowing which is the more relevant one to alert you on, not all of them at once.
When your day is over, you head to the gym or your favorite activity to exercise. You pop in your truly wireless headphones, put on your gym clothes that have sensors to track your activity in them and get to work. Your headphones play music, sure, but they also change tempo based on your intensity. The headphones in your ears are also paired to your clothes and the cloud, so they tell you when you break a new PR or surpass that next mile. The beauty of all of this is that there is no setting up of modes or workouts, you just do your thing.
After getting your sweat on, you head home. While driving, your car’s location has told your home automation assistant to heat your food, and it will be perfectly ready for you. As you are finishing your food, your assistant will alert you that your favorite show is about to start and puts it on your closest screen at your request.
You finish your day with a hot shower in which the temp is perfect, so you don’t get that cold shock to jolt you before bed. All screens in your house will have a warmer hue so you can sleep better. There is no need to bring your phone into your bed to strain your eyes and kink your neck because the entirety of your house is connected and can perform the tasks via voice or text command on numerous surfaces.
I don’t know about you, but this sounds great. I can imagine getting loads of time back in my life to do the things that really matter. I’d be able to work harder, exercise longer, see my family and friends more, and have time to relax. Sure this isn’t here yet, but you can automate and outsource a lot of tasks which are in large done by computers and machines. The next step is to get these tasks done in my house, car, and office to complete my perfectly connected life.
Header photo credit: marvell.com
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Originally published at mindhungry.com on August 2, 2016.
