Thinking sessions: Living of the future
You know, there's those days when you wake up and suddenly and idea pops in your head out of nowhere, your mind catches up, spinning its “processors” to the 100% collaring that initial idea with adding new “layers” of ideas to it and you feel like flying with your head in sky. Some people call that dreaming, but I call it “self-hackathon” because I'm trying to think about many aspects around that initial idea to how successfully accomplish it in the end. What we can do now. What needs to be done. How can we do it. In what time frame can we accomplish it. Cost. Money. Investors. People. My head is BURNING!
I love those days. But this weekend, that initial idea progressed into something that suddenly “clicked” with my views of the future about living, health, smart homes and digital nomad lifestyle.
Quantified-self and self-tracking
Since I first saw Anand Sharma's AprilZero website in 2014 (the old one), I was instantly hooked and started searching for more information about this trend of tracking everything. In 2015 I've learned JavaScript extensively and made small tracking website for a MMORPG game I was playing back then. I was inspired by aprilzero and wanted to build similar web app — software as a service for more people. But, interesting thing happened. You can tell how big was my excitement when Gyrosco.pe was announced! Instant sign-up! At the time, it's design was superb, sci-fi-like spinners and menus, it looked so nice. After some time, Pro version was added and new themes, like Helix. Even better design!
I'm really enjoying watching statistics about myself, how my days are productive in %, how long I work, if I'm doing good job keeping healthy work-life balance, etc. I think that people should invest their time to keep track of important statistics like blood pressure, bpm, how long they sit, how often and how long they walk/run. It should be available to doctors so they can see weekly or annual report of how these stats changed over time, nutritionists could recommend good diet based on what you ate and daily/weekly weight change and so on. Also I believe that automated self-tracking is the key to life extension.
Smart homes
“The number of smart thermostats in North American and European homes increased by 105 percent in 2014 to a total of 3.2 million units, according to Berg Insight and is projected to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 64.2 percent by 2019” [1].
Once a draw for the tech-savvy or the wealthy, smart homes and home automation are becoming more common.
If I'm going to build myself a house in future, it will definitely be smart.
Smart in a way that it will know things. Things like personal statistics. Temperature. Energy consumption. Any device that uses electricity can be put on home network and at your command. Using solar panels for clean energy.
Wait… did I just say that smart homes can know my personal statistics? Think about it. What if your own home could tell you that you're sitting at your computer for 5 hours and it's time for a walk or a swim in your pool (which it automatically heated up to warmer temperature right now of course, smart one!). It reminds you to step on weight after every shower and saves data wirelessly to central house database into personal statistics. Voice similar to Cortana asks for your name so it knows who is currently using that weight, you answer and central AI fires up to transform your voice to text and save it. You see whatever data you want on your mirror (hide/show it with voice, obviously).
What if your smart home was build from the start with personal physical fitness in mind?
Digital nomadism and remote jobs
Last few years we see boom in digital nomad lifestyle around the world. There's a deluge of remote jobs. So far I've worked from Prague, Berlin, Copenhagen, Barcelona and currently planning my next destination for work after I finish exams in college this semester. There are co-working offices in nearly all major cities around the world, co-living is on the rise.
Certainly, lot of digital nomads are saying that they want to settle after some years of traveling the world and working from all those nice places. But what if building multiple houses in different places around the world wasn't that expensive?
In the beginning of 2015, guys from China 3D-printed 10 houses in 24 hours.
They also said that the construction process is cost-effective and environmentally friendly.
In 2016, guys from Amsterdam started working on “Research & Design by Doing” of 3D-printed, full-sized Canal House.
This could be groundbreaking and will shape new way how we approach to building cities of the future.
There's also another new trend emerging — projects like Finding Aldea are trying to repopulate abandoned villages around the world. This could be also very interesting for digital nomads in future.
Proposal
Now I jump back to the start of this article, especially to the section where my head was burning…
Let's create a company focused on building two types of 3D-printed SmartHouses within time period of max 10 years. Think of it as an Apple company — focused on small product line, hardware and software works nicely together, their products are designed with precise style which fuels fanboys all over the world.
1. SmartHouse Family
This type of 3D-printed smart house is great for families. It's build, from ground up, with IoT sensors in mind. Model of a house is presented for future buyers in virtual reality with interactive interior designer app.
Basement will come with personal fitness centrum, connected to central Health database with all the family members statistics. Beds will track sleep. All the smart, connected equipment you see currently in smart houses and software built to match SmartHouse Family hardware — as closely as iMac hardware and Mac OS X software. All-in-one, easy to use, voice-controlled, AI-backed, beautifully designed. You can move in and start living in it immediately because it's fully set-up (incl. furniture, etc.).
2. SmartHouse Co-living
This type is tailored specifically for co-working and co-living. It includes offices (designed by potential buyer in virtual reality app), basement fitness centrum, connected to the database of multiple SmartHouse Co-livings around the world, in cloud. This way you can move to the next SmartHouse Co-living in another part of the world and access your data. Your room will also know who you are so central AI knows how to call you by name! You have many features from SmartHouse Family here, but in smaller place.
