Well, actually I’m not. Not yet. I wish I could. As a wearer of regular prescription glasses I’m fine with wearing a frame at all time. But there are two aspects holding me back from doing so. The first one is a minor issue, battery life. But I’m sure that one day that will be fixed. The second issue is more fundamental. There need to be enough use-cases to convince me to wear a pair of smartglasses throughout the day.
Paradigm shift
I expect that moment wil come when a paradigm shift occurs in the way we relate to our smartglasses. In many use-cases the device functions in reactive mode:
- please translate something for me
- take a video
- look up something, or tell us what I’m looking at
- set a reminder
But the full power of wearing a camera equipped device will be unleashed when it is not simply waiting for commands to obey, but when it is pro-actively monitoring us, understanding what’s going to intervene in our life.
- it detects when we meet a person, so it can remind us what to ask or say
- it knows we’re in a meeting or enjoying a moment of spare time
- it instructs us to do a task, because the context is right
The right recommendations
The last functionality in the list above sounds like the miraculous moment we know from movies and teaser videos. An AI that thinks for us. But that’s not how I want it to be. I don’t want to get suggestions because everyone else in the world would do a certain thing in a certain situation. I want recommendations or instructions that relate to my own activities in life, my own to do’s or the things I want to do at any point in the future.
Feeding a personal assistant with my own input is where that all starts. In addition to connecting my smartglasses to my personal and work agenda, it’s great to be able to talk to an AI to dump all kinds of ideas, tasks, urgent to do’s or future plans. Carefully labeling that input is key, the dropped tasks and ideas need to surface at the right time.
The ultimate reminder instrument
A pair of smartglasses is the ultimate life managing instrument. Compared to a classis smartphone centered reminder ecosystem, it is better in 3 ways:
- It has eyes that understand where I am and what I do.
- That makes it possible to define more sophisticated trigger rules, not being limited to only specifying a date/time or a location
- The always-on Heads Up Display means you’ll never miss a reminder
But that said, the always-on aspect is not there yet. But despite that, I have decided to start prototying the interface and building the back-end already. So when the right hardware is there, I’ll be ready to start using my pair of smartglasses as a life managing device from day one.
IF <this> THEN I …
AI can be used to detect situations and it can help us during the process of adding new ideas and rules into our to do rulebase. But at the core of my to do list there won’t be AI. Many of my to do items are actually basic “IF <this> THEN I ….” rules. If the context is right THEN I should or I want to do <that>. The smartness comes with being able to specify a rich set of triggers to let reminders pop up at the right time.
Connecting to all the sources providing the trigger input is going to be quite a technical challenge. And the design of the interface is going to be an exciting adventure because of the world of possibilities that opens up when an always-on display and an always-on camera can be used.
But first things first: defining the functionality of an ‘enhanced to do item’. And when that’s done, my first to do can be entered: to implement the rest.
Example scenarios
A tech design like the one above is abstract. So here are some examples to illustrate the situations I’m creating the reminder app for:
“When I get home, remind me to charge my e-bike”
“IF I meet Bob, remind me to ask him about his new job”
“+ Remove this reminder after 3 weeks from now, or after seeing Bob”.
“IF I leave home, pop up my [leaving home] to do list”
“When I’m near a fruit&veg store, remind me to buy bananas”
“When I have [time to spend reading], remind me to read article X”
“When I put on my shoes, ask me where I am going“
“When going to Victor, remind me to take bring back his umbrella”
“When I’m [considering a citytrip] suggest browsing websiteY.com
Wildcard scenarios
While designing the mechanism for the reminder instrument, numerous other ideas surfaced. Instead of triggers and reminders for you to act upon, the system could also be used to control the activity for your smart wearables.
“When someone says [Sander, please …] then record 10 seconds of audio”
“At the start of the day, bring up my [tip of the day] list”
“When I’m moody, don’t transcribe everything that’s being said by me and others”
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-im-using-my-smartglasses-daily-life-sander-veenhof-teeie/