A Tale of Smart Cities – Internet of Things
October 28, 2030
6:45 am
The city of Technopolis is asleep.
Bob’s alarm clock starts ringing, its volume steadily rising. Even after an entire minute of relentless buzzing, Bob hasn’t budged. The clock then sends out signals to the thermostat, the drapes and the overhead lights. The room suddenly becomes chilly, the drapes open up and the lights shine bright.
Bob groans, “Shut up, you stupid thing”
The alarm is still blaring.
Shivering and agitated, Bob turns off the alarm clock. The noise stops, but it’s only after Bob gets out of bed and steps onto the travellator, that everything else goes back to normal.
There’s a panel on the wall where Bob chooses his destination as ‘Bathroom 1’. Just before he steps into the bathroom, the lights in his bedroom go off and the lights in the bathroom go on. Every small thing contributes to energy saving.
He brushes, flosses and quickly checks his dental health rating. 8/10. Nice.
As is his habit, he steps on to the body analyzer. His heart rate is a little high, so soothing music starts playing in the bathroom. Due to his high BMI, the scale starts suggesting exercise and dietary changes. As usual, Bob cuts it off midway with a gesture. He’s turned off the ‘Report to Doctor’ feature permanently. Who cares about getting fat?
Now that the scale has measured his body temperature, Bob steps into the shower and taps a few buttons. A few minutes later, he’s soaped, shampooed and dried off. An efficient showering mechanism to reduce time and conserve water. Not to forget, the water is at exactly the right temperature. Brilliant, isn’t it?
He walks over to his wardrobe. It dispenses clothes according to the weather.
All dressed up, Bob goes to his kitchen. He gets his coffee from the machine and eats his toast in silence. He’s been living in Technopolis for so long that his previous lifestyle seems impossible now. Just last week, his toaster had detected a problem and sent a diagnostic report to the service center. Bob had received a message on his smartphone asking if he was willing to spend 20$ to fix the toaster. All he did was tap on ‘Yes’ and the payment was made, the toaster was fixed and Bob continued getting his toast every morning.
Cutting through his thoughts, an alarm starts ringing again. Time to go to work.
7:45 am
Hurriedly, he steps out of the house and activates the burglar alarm system. The thermostat, the lights and all other smart devices shut off. Quickly he gets into the backseat of his car, selects his destination and lies down. Bob’s always hated driving. Self-driving cars and traffic flow optimization are a boon. While wondering about why his clock woke him up early, Bob dozes off. He is oblivious to a different and longer route- a route that takes 15 minutes extra- taken by his car due to a faulty bridge on his usual route. Suddenly makes sense, doesn’t it? Anticipatory computing making life easy.
8:30 am
Bob reaches his office building and steps out of the car. His watch tells him the air quality is great. Reduced greenhouse gas emissions, low vehicular pollution and proper waste management for households and industries has resulted in a healthy environment. But due to advanced healthcare and increased life expectancy, the problem of overpopulation remained unsolved.
Bob enters the office building and notices everyone around him is wearing cotton shirts and shorts. “Darned global warming”, he mutters under his breath.
Quickly scanning his fingerprints, he takes the elevator up to his office and gets to work. Bob’s a builder. He and fellow architects spend the entire day working on their newest project- a 300 storied building. It’s in the final stages of completion. Using the HoloLens, the architects explain to him the exact structure of the building and the placement of all the sensors in the infrastructure integrity monitoring system. Every building is made keeping in mind that energy saving and water conservation are crucial.
7 pm
Bob’s ready to leave from work when his phone pings. It reminds him that his wife Betty is coming back in town tonight. Panicking for a moment, he checks his text messages. His phone has already sent Betty a sweet and loving message. Phew. Romance automated.
He goes to the airport to pick her up. She’s already waiting. The trakdot has made tracking luggage so easy. They go out for dinner and then head home.
10 pm
The house has pre-cooled to the right temperature.
Betty goes to bed and Bob plays on his Oculus Rift. Meanwhile, Bob’s car goes to the maintenance center for its monthly servicing.
11 pm
Oculus stops working when it senses that Bob’s eyes are getting strained. Quickly putting his phone on charge, Bob sleeps off.
That, folks, is just another day in the life of a smart city dweller.
Would you want to live like this? Which other IoT gadgets would you want to use? Comment below to let me know!
Note: This is a purely fictional (and perhaps a little far-fetched) story set in the future. The hyperlinks are only to show that similar devices exist in today’s world.