I'm really happy this topic is getting some traction. Human well-being should be the non-negotiable constraint within the design process.
I understand the argument that people should be able to manage themselves but human nature is not that simple. People are never told that they are about to use a drug that has been proven to have addictive effects.
Receiving a like on facebook releases dopamine the same way smoking, drinking alcohol or gambling do. All fine in the right amount but dangerous when taken beyond a certain point. One of the problems for example is that people tend to use these substances more under stressful situation like studying for exams, dealing with a problem in your relationship, etc.
> I understand the argument that people should be able to manage themselves
I think that argument is made because people arent aware of the degree to which external factors can influence not only our behaviors, but our thoughts. Im sure the HN crowd is aware of things like framing and anchoring, but there are dozens of cognitive biases we are all susceptible to
hey, author here. we're thinking about sharing stories about hardware startups that decided for the local manufacturing route including price differences, manufacturing tips, gm contacts, etc. If somebody is interested or wants to get involved, please send me an email: tobias@senic.com
hey, author here.
- the assumption that china is cheaper
- the assumption that cost savings trumphs all
- not being exposed to what is possible locally
- a hype around making something abroad
You can't be possibly talking about a light switch, right? :) That's exactly what I'm talking about. I want something as simple as a light switch to control the colors of my lifx, Hue or control my sonos speakers.
You're right. I'm going to talk about them in particular in a follow up post. I wear a pebble as well and I used to use it to control volume. I see smartwatches taking a big place in smart homes. Our issues were that they were not a shared control, you still had to use vision as your primary sensor input, battery life, screen size and problems with connectivity. But I'm confident some of these issues will be resolved soon.
Yep. I'm really seeing a near-term future of using a touchpad or kinect-like device for control, but more importantly paired with the smartwatch for vibration feedback / engaging into a gesture mode. There's no hard rule that a watch has to only connect to a smartphone.
And if you look at the Apple's acquisition of Primesense (kinect-sensor folks) and upcoming introduction of 'Taptics' into the Apple Watch, my guess is that these things will work together.
I've been trying to prototype this as an experimental addon to my touch plugin thimbleup.com (and sure, I'd love to eventually make it work with Senic Flow too). Testers have noted making continuous gestures/controls need a bit of 'stickiness' to it -- something that makes the gesture feel that if you use it enough, you don't have to rely solely on your eyes. A smartwatch takes care of that if it can manage the battery-life of being a low-latency bluetooth mode to get feedback data quickly,
I agree. And that's exactly one of the big changes that are happening. Prices for hardware components and manufacturing are dropping and we now have the ability to think about more suitable interfaces. I stopped using my lifx after a week because I did not have a fast and simple interface to control them.
Hey, one of the founders here. When we talk about integrated, we're talking about sensors integrated in the materials like tables and walls around us. It does not mean that all of these components should be integrated in one device. I did not phrase this well enough. Thanks!
I agree that we want a centralized intelligence. I personally don't want to carry my smartphone around all the time though. We can't we use what's around us like glass, tables walls or use small projectors that track your positioning?
"I personally don't want to carry my smartphone around all the time though"
There is an interesting cultural phenomena where a significant fraction of the population agrees with us, and another significant fraction thinks we're completely crazy, and the two groups do not believe the opposite party exists.
We have a few products in mind that would instantly add value. Think about your feet or objects and surfaces around you like a table. Why not use them? Why not blend technology into natural things that use more senses than just your eyes and a reduced form of haptics.
I understand the argument that people should be able to manage themselves but human nature is not that simple. People are never told that they are about to use a drug that has been proven to have addictive effects.
Receiving a like on facebook releases dopamine the same way smoking, drinking alcohol or gambling do. All fine in the right amount but dangerous when taken beyond a certain point. One of the problems for example is that people tend to use these substances more under stressful situation like studying for exams, dealing with a problem in your relationship, etc.