Now the title smarter technology seems to be a very broad term, but it’s a term that you will be hearing a lot in the next few years. Along with a new terminology will become household jargon “Internet of Things.” Now if you don’t know what this means, I will give you a very feasible example before giving you the full definition.
You’re feeling a bit stressed out as of late and feel like having a family movie night therefore you mark, in your electronic based calendar, ‘Family movie night 7pm Thursday’ this will now not only appear on all your smart devices but on all your families calendars synced devices also. Come Thursday you will find that you will have received a delivery of popcorn and sweets, at a time where someone would definitely be home, again judged by the online family schedules. When you open the package you see the snacks measured out into perfect
proportions according to families consumption habits. At approximately 6.45pm you will receive a notification from your microwave that to have your popcorn at perfect eating temperature you should insert at 6.50 for 5 minutes then cool for 5 minutes, so you don’t burn your mouth on the hot kernels. Your entertainment system has already selected according to previous watching choices of the whole family what film selection you all would like to watch, and has adjusted to your mood which it would have read from you’re wearable technology watch, all of your phones automatically switches themselves to answer machine mode and will only allow contacts marked as urgent through during the period of the film. Your lighting around the house will automatically turn everything else off, and have low cinema watching light in your viewing area.
This is just one viable example of how the internet of things potentially could work. The Internet of Things can be defined as an internetworking of physical items that can be as small as wristbands, shoes and toothbrushes, to as large as vehicles, rooms and buildings. These are embedded with electronics that can collect and share data either processed by themselves, or by a central processing unit. There are so many applications for this, the number of possibilities is limitless and with the popularity of home assistants on the rise, such as Amazon Echo and Google those central processing units can become artificially intelligent assistants.
So how is smarter technology going to make its way across into promotional products? There is already a small range of wearable technology in the promotional market, showing signs already of smarter technology making its way across. Activity wristbands connect to your phone feeding it up-to date data of steps taken and calories burnt, now app dependant this will go through processing and calculate how many calories you now need to reach your optimum weight. Another health and lifestyle related item I have seen on the promotional market, actually works perfectly as a promotional gift, is a water bottle that measure how much liquid you are drinking throughout the day, and encourages you to drink more. Now by combining this with your smart connected wearable device, telling you how many calories you’re burning, along with a smart connected weighing scale you can see the conversation these ‘Internet of Things’ can be having to improve your daily health.
These five product categories really do exhibit the fact that new technology doesn’t necessarily have to mean a completely new invention, the wheel doesn’t have to be invented over and over again, it can just be a newer and smarter version of old technology. We see this all the time, but now with the introduction of the Internet of things, we are seeing not only smarter devices, we are seeing smarter devices that talk to each other and learn from each other. With all this being said, I still look forward to the day I can add flying cars, spaceships, teleportation systems and other futuristic technology to the what’s trending list!