You’ve locked your house, loaded the kids in the car, and started backing out of the driveway when you realize you left the lights on. You speak into your wrist, “Alexa: Turn all the lights off,” and drive off.
You’re on a 15 hour flight from Los Angeles to Hong Kong. You realize you need to post that Martian Smartwatch writeup before you land. You connect to the in-flight Wi-Fi and send it in.
What do these scenarios have in common? They both involve two technologies meeting together in a supremely useful way. We had planes and Wi-Fi for years before someone paired them. Ditto voice assistants and smartwaches.
Meh writer @skemmehs here writing from 30,000 feet about the marvels of mashed-together technologies. I’m being hurtled through the air by jet engines while listening to John Coltrane on the in-flight entertainment system and writing the words you see on a laptop that is connected to Wi-Fi beamed from somewhere in Siberia.
Cool.
I’ve been bearish on both smartwatches and smarthomes. I haven’t seen an example yet where either would significantly improve my life. But this Martian watch may change my tune. It overcomes some of my major gripes about the two technologies.
For one thing, it looks like a nice watch instead of a hulking wrist screen. Some watches try their darndest to look trendy, but they just don’t work for my style (or, honestly, most styles).
For another, it has always bugged me that you have to buy a smart assistant speaker for each room in your house if you want to make it really work. But if your watch functions like a Star Trek insignia, you can use it from the bathroom, crawlspace, or an alien landscape.
Similarly, it irks me how loudly I have to speak to Alexa to get my petty needs met. Half the time I speak to her, someone in the other room yells “What did you say?” assuming I was addressing them. And it’s just deeply weird to throw one’s voice across the room at a small black speaker, as though it were a human being. Whispering to my watch would overcome both of these tribulations, even if it looked creepy.
Yes, I could have waited until I reached Hong Kong to send this in. And yes you could get out of your car, unlock the front door, and scream at Alexa to turn off the lights. But thanks to mashed-together technologies, we don’t have to.
