What kind of wearable device do you want? Assuming it will work and feel like you imagine it would

Otter@lemmy.ca to Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 61 points –

It's getting cold and so I'm fumbling with my phone and other devices.

I like the idea of a large screen on my forearm, but I'm not sure how it would work. Maybe it would be cool?

I see some company tried in 2014 and probably didn't get anywhere (see Arubixs Portal), and there was that infamous Kickstarter too

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I want the gravity gloves from Half Life Alyx.

Back when I played the game I was putting in a couple hours a day for a little bit. One morning I woke up to my cell phone alarm going off and I reached over to shut it off but it was out of reach. In my not very awake state, and having been spending so much time in VR with the gravity gloves on, I pointed two of my fingers at my phone to "tether" it and started flicking my wrist to "pull" it to me, just like in the game. It wasn't until it obviously didn't come flying through the air to me and I started getting frustrated that I woke up enough to realize that sleepy me is incredibly stupid and you can't make things fly through the air to you in the real world.

I once went outside on a foggy day and thought, wow, this render distance is terrible

wow, this tender distance is terrible

"Tender distance" sounds like some kind of song name.

You are not alone, I had the same experience after hours of Alyx. Shows how immersive that game is.

As dumb as it is, I've always wanted a robotic third arm.

Best we can do is a pair of robot arms. One would make you unbalanced.

I still think a google glass for people that do wear glasses would be great, I already spend the entire day with this dumb thing in front of my eyes, would be great if it was smart too. The problem is that they marketed glasses for people that don't need it.

My favorite idea for augmented reality is the ability to overlay historical photos of architecture. To see the world as it was 10, 20, or 100 years ago.

If only they could figure out the privacy aspect of having something recording video on your face.

I don't even want that many sci-fi things, I want an Android smart watch that lasts a week with normal use.

What do you use it for? I use a Garmin watch that shows me notifications, does sleep tracking, tracks workouts, and lasts two weeks on a charge.

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My Huawei buds smartwatch lasts a good week. It's the gps when i go mountainbiking and walking that drains it quite a bit.

I saw a mrwhosetheboss video going over the Huawei tech we’re missing out on in the states and their smartwatches really impressed me besides the small stuff like lacking an app store on them

I have to be honest, my first and only smartwatch before this one was the watch 2 i think it was called. I bought it used and the battery was only good for a day or a day and a half tops. It was also slow and not very responsive, so i was truly blown away by this one. Always having emergency earbuds on hands is really nice too, although i haven't used them as much as i thought i would. I don't know about the app store thing, because i have all i need on it pretty much stock. Now in hindsight i would've probably been better off with one of those ink screen watches where the battery lasts a month or so. But otherwise i'm very happy, i wear it every day.

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I want the earring stud connected to a personal Ai like in Enders Game. The author (Orson Scott Card) called her Jane.

Of course in the book she was completely connected and insanely intelligent so made him in riches beyond belief while he was doing things like space traveling. Nice side feature.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_(Ender%27s_Game)

The aliens near the end were probably the biggest sf heartbreak ever for me. I want a sequel to Children of the Mind :(

Hey ChatGPT, figure out a way to teleport me anywhere in the universe thx

Bit of a curve ball, but I'm a huge fan of a simple casio.

When you're in a city or a deprived poorer area, it's far safer to look at your watch than take out your phone.

It's also more professional in a work context, especially in customer facing roles. If you look at your phone to check the time, people are more likely to think you're checking your notifications and not fully engaged in what you're doing.

Have a casio you recommend?

Basic g-shock or the classic F91W.

The former, I'm a fan of the DW5600BB. Blacked out, minimalist, works with almost everything (even a suit), indestructible. A choice even watch snobs can respect. 50-100 dollars/euros on amazon.

The F91W comes in a few fun colours. I personally like black and gold. It's retro, so it's invariably seen as cool. It's also dirt cheap. 10-20 dollars/euros.

They've been making them for decades. A classic. Different colours if that's your style.

Not the same commenting user. But I have the same feelings about watches.

I would say the Casio F-91w is the classic and timeless but depending on your needs something like the Casio World Time might be more your speed. IIRC they both have backlights alarms stop watches and tell the time. With the world time tracking all the major time zones and two timezones manually set.

Smart glasses.

With locally processed data

*Contact Lenses

Ah yes. Can't wait to get ads injected straight into my cornea. While driving my car. Wonderful.

Ha - they wouldn’t do that! It’s not like Waze puts a full screen ad up every time you stop at a traffic light… oh, wait. Damn you capitalism!!!

Cyborg eyes.

Enjoy your macular degeneration fleshbags.

You only need one to be cyborg eye… the other one can succumb the way nature intended… to diabetes and television.

Yup. Don't care how heavy or ugly it is either. I'd probably buy the apple headset thing if it was cheaper, ran Linux, and wasn't made by Apple. Can't wait for the technology to come down in price.

I'm with you.

In fact, I made my own. It's fugly and dorky as hell, but it's everything I want and nothing I don't.

I used a VuFine LCD eyepiece and hooked a raspi Zero W to it. Input via Bluetooth keyboard. Not a lot of screen real estate, so I went full CLI and wrote my own TUI with widget support so I can have an "active" app, plus a bunch of passive data widgets.

Earphones/buds that don't slide out/off your ear and that you can lie down on, without pain or discomfort. That also have good sound that don't leak and easy to use controls that don't get accidentally triggered.

Being able to lie down with them would be really nice

Some kind of chip or retina scanner that lets you into wherever you want with no hassle. I have keys for home, keys for my car, keys for my parents, a keycard for work, a code for the gym, there's a lot of shit to carry round just so I can go into the places that I'm allowed to go into.

I already hate that I have to have my phone with me at all times (cause of work and family that wants me to be available). Definitely don’t want to wear another thing tracking me, distracting me and spamming notifications.

If I had to switch my phone to a wearable the best would probably be an earpiece that reads text for me, if needed.

Glasses and wristbands are a privacy nightmare and I can’t wait for people to get AR ads with their shiny new glasses.

The hope here was that the device would work the way we want them to

So locally processed data, no tracking (unless you want to track your location intentionally) etc.

Guess under those circumstances a health tracker might be a useful thing. I’m not a huge fan of quantifying that kinda stuff, but getting a heads up for problems would be nice. Don’t give me any shit like a sleep score or whatever, just beep me if my heart is beating irregularly or something else is wrong.

But as the other guy said, I’m too much of a pessimist to believe in a gadget like that ever existing ;) There’s always gonna be data mining and companies bombarding you with bullshit and ads.

Aw man, why did you have to ruin it by being such a pessimist! An entirely accurate and correct pessimist.

I can't find an image of it but the phone/watch concept shown in The Peripheral would be cool. Basically a touch screen that can be either flat and work like current smartphones or wrapped around your arm with the whole area being a screen (with a better interface than current smartwatches).

One that slaps me on the back of my head every time I'm ruminating

I remember seeing something like that for posture, could repurpose it

Kamen Rider suit, complete with being able to shout, "Henshin!" and transform.

No I will not elaborate.

A ring that would have a button that, when pressed, would generate some kind of hologram touchscreen or turn into a lightweight phone.

Honestly like iron mans HUD would be pretty neat to have but knowing myself I'd end up getting ran over while walking or would be easy pickings for a thief

Edit: Forgot to mention what I use. After getting a pair of buds+ I dont really fumble for my device anymore. Samsung's touch controls for the buds+ are great. Setup with the app once and delete it right after and you're golden

Some mobile device with holo display like in "Upload". They use a wristband similar to a smartwatch.

I already have an Apple Watch. That’s enough for me.

Keeping it clean, I think I'd want hotshot contact lenses, that could provide clear vision in all conditions plus when asked, project for me readable information as though there was a page in front of me. And modes like magnification.

If NSFW allowed, I can think of a few more that would be nice to have. But given the choice, still would prefer the super eyes.

I miss my Pebble. :( I have yet to find an adequate replacement since it died.

Same, I have the Amazon gts 2 and it's alright but it's not the same. Thinking of getting the PineTime next but the firmware was a bit underwhelming last I checked.

Same! After mine broke I bounced between Samsung and Garmin before landing in a feñix 6 pro sapphire. Battery life is amazing. Watch faces are configurable and Garmin has an application that allows you to build your own faces if you have the time/inclination. And it's damn near indestructible. Going on 3 years daily wear and it still looks like it could be new. Check out the black Friday deals.

im really surprised there isnt a hat form factor smart device. imagine a baseball cap with a HUD display mounted upside down in the brim, plenty of room for batteries and weight balanced.

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i'm a simple man: i just want 108 keys split into two panels on a vest. USB-A connector would be fine, maybe even ideal. i'll jack it into the system i want. i guess it would need a killswitch or something.

Not a device but your post reminded of how I always want very thin but warm gloves this time of year so I can use a keyboard and phone without my fingers getting cold. I try to keep my heater usage to a minimum.

I'd like to know if there is a sci-fi source for this; I've wanted — what I call — infinifabric for a long time. Basically a cross between:

  • the microbots in Big Hero 6,

  • the symbiote from Spider-Man (sans sentience), and

  • programmable matter from Star Trek: Discovery

One fabric layer that can reshape itself into any and every conceivable article of clothing. Perfectly regulates body temperature, water loss, and environmental challenges.

From Altered Carbon: an Oni. Built-in telecommunications. Seems way closer to fruition than DHF stacks. Though, is the stack worn so much as is part of oneself? In universe, it seems that the stack IS the person.

From Dune, Foundation, and that one episode of Star Trek: TNG: a personal shield.

This topic makes me wonder if prosthetic devices count as "wearables", per se, or not. If anyone out there is in the know — you or someone you're close to have (has)/wear(s) a prosthesis — please let me know.

I built myself a HUD using a VuFine LCD and a raspi Zero W. It runs a custom TUI I wrote for myself that provides an interactive terminal session surrounded by configurable text widgets.

Currently, I have widgets configured to display the date/time, the weather (near-term and week), and CPU/Mem utilization. With the main display running my combined to-do/calendar app to help keep me organized.

It's tacky as hell, bulky and exposed wires, but I love it.

This is the dystopian 80's-cyberpunk future that I want!

Does a bag of holding count?

A big positive for driving over transit is being able to bring extra stuff that you might need

A bag of holding would fix that. 100% prepared, all the time

Not to mention the ease of carry. No heavy backpacks or unwieldy suitcases.

So you want a phone strapped to your wrist that can be oriented vertically or horzontally? Some samsung devices sport styluses, namely the ultra phone, that you can use instead of your fingers as it can be hard or impossible to do with gloves on. The unfortunate downside to this is that your arm would get tired after long use, and you are more dependent on headphones/earbuds or speakerphone for calls. A phone attached to your arm could be clumsy for quick actions and needs your hands to be free to use, but you live with what you have.

Maybe instead, a mechanical arm that attaches to your shoulders will be more versatile as you can still do one-handed, and your arm will not get tired. Could maybe include a stabilizer in the design for great video recording capabilities.

That's true, I already get annoyed with my watch sometimes

Having a mechanical arm would be pretty cool actually, and it already exists. It wouldn't work for all cases, but maybe some times

The phone or display attached to your arm /wrist will not work for all cases either, so we are just looking for enhancements to those who can take advantage of it. The rest will need either more specialized solutions or don't need it.

Uhhh....hmmm...Iron Man's arc reactor suit from Avengers Endgame.

Well, it meets the requirements so here you are :)

Also I think this one wins, since it can become any of the other ones

Nothing.

I hate having to have my goddamn phone on me all the time, and thats in my pocket.

last thing I want to do is have some piece of shit, ad-laden security back door as part of wearable fashion.

Not wanting anything is fair, but the intent here was the best case scenario (even unrealistically so). So the device would not have anything you don't want, ads and security issues included

Again, not wanting any device is cool too