Ever wondered what a typical day in smart glasses (or contacts) might look like once we incorporate XR (extended reality) into our daily lives?
How about living in the Mirrorworld, a virtual information overlay onto our reality?
Let’s walk through it…
7:00 AM
You wake up, reaching for your prescription-insert smart glasses. The world comes into extended reality focus.
7:30 AM
Your smart glasses recognize the food in your fridge according to a nutritional database. In the upper right corner, a few recommendations for breakfast recipes. You choose pancakes (rated cooking difficulty 1.5/5), and follow the animated instructions on the screen floating in the corner of your vision.
8:00 AM
You load up the smart glass homepage to pass time on the train. (Or magnetized super-highway, depending on the day, really). You scroll through some retail options. Online shopping’s only gotten better since the days of scrolling through your laptop. A digital silhouette, based on the measurements you put in, walks a runway down the train aisle. You switch to a furniture site and place a virtual sofa around the train car. You’re just trying to balance it on the second row of seats when a notification pops up, reminding you to start walking to the train station to make the next departure.
8:25 AM
You get off the train to walk to work. Maps loads up, neon arrows gently nudging you down the fastest walking routes. The digital trail is a glowing line over your walking path and winding through the city. Estimated time of arrival, 20 minutes. In the corner beside that are your health stats. Heartbeat steady. As you go uphill, it glows yellow, showing that you’ve hit the minimum for exercise. You haven’t exercised as much as you used to. Maybe you should contact a friend for a game of eSports.
8:30 AM
Your friend recently relocated from Tokyo. Though you’re still trying to brush up on Japanese, you get lost in translating, at times. Luckily, a scrolling version of voice-recognition subtitles translate your friend’s conversation for you. You schedule that game of eSports you wanted to, and agree to digital dodgeball after work.
8:44 AM
You pay to renew your year-long train pass with an eye-scan instead of a credit card.
10:00 AM
You arrive at work a little early (perfect for a new job) and load the welcome initiation on the screen. Training starts right on time at 10:05, and the company CEO gives you a speech as though she’s walking around the space in front of you. You shake the hologram’s hand and she continues to outline the basics of your job, including starting a brief training session here you go through miscellaneous safety tips that you have to interact with to continue to ensure you’re engaging with the material.
11:00 AM
You sit in on the first board meeting, just observing as it’s your first day. It’s the CEO again, sitting at the head of the table despite currently traveling on a plane headed to Mexico City. Most of the board is there through telepresence, and you’re able to see all of them, including the screen displaying the presentation through your smart glass lens.
11:30 AM
You sift through the data in an XR visualization. You’re currently analyzing flight maps, and you run your hands along the globe in a 3D space. As the data shifts and changes, the paths crisscross seamlessly. It’s much clearer to see the data here as opposed to a flat surface. Easier to explore the space and comprehend.
12:15 PM
Lunch. A reminder from your nutrition app that you haven’t eaten for around four hours now. You navigate your way to a restaurant using the neon arrow maps ( 3/ 5 for location/entertainment, but 5 / 5 for good food). The digital monitor version of a menu shows the food options of the day, glowing food items hovering over every item on the menu instead of flat pictures. You swipe through your options until you find a vegetable soup and cheese sandwich combination. A little chef dances on the tables, giving you a mini show as you eat. As with breakfast, the meal goes into an overall nutrition/vitamin tracker for the day.
5:00 PM
You leave work and head to the impromptu eSports competition that you set up with your friend. You both go to the eSports gym, where motion trackers and movement treadmills allow you a feeling of movement beyond just those four walls. Your smart glasses display the usual heart rate and mileage statistics at the edges as you start up the app for digital dodgeball. Virtual spheres of light erupt from your hands, and the game loads an open world and maze for you to navigate.
8:00 PM
Before bed, you settle into a book. (Nothing fancy here except for paper. It’s nice to take a break from smart glasses sometimes). A bit later, you load into a virtual movie theater to stream a new show with them. When they drift to sleep, you transport yourself into a seat that’s even closer than the front row. You transport yourself into the story, wandering around the movie world for a bit, getting close to the actors in digital space.
10:00 PM
After an app to calm you down and make you tired, you take the smart glasses off and sleep. Dreams don’t have to be digital…
Yet.
