THE FUTURE OF CONNECTED DEVICES AND INFRASTRUCTURE.
We have been keenly interested in the progress happening in this space for quite some time. In our homes we interact with devices and appliances that are growing increasingly connected. Working at home as we have throughout this pandemic, you have begun to observe the limits of your devices. Internet connectivity and the total usage throughout each day has incrementally taxed our home and ISP networks. As builders at Devland, the focus has been to investigate the emerging trends in connected devices in order to propose new concepts for our team to work on with new entrepreneurs and research teams. We have grown concerned about device dependency on internet based connectivity. Through our idea review process we have generated new concepts that abide by a simple set of principles.
This process starts typically with a few questions:
How does is this solution interact with humans as well as other devices?
How does the presence of this connected device impact bandwidth or available cell connectivity load?
How do these devices function offline or in disaster scenarios?
What can we create that understands the present constraints and still provides a useful solution to the desired end user?
We get involved in a heavy initial discussion before we launch an ideas campaign where our team will begin formulating idea proposals that are able to answer these questions effectively. By effectively, we intend the ideas to be communicated in a way that exposes an opportunity for further validation. As the process goes on, the goal is to depart from a blue sky premise to something tangible and executable as a prototype based on currently available materials and resources.
The Disaster Radio
We have always wanted to create devices that are able to provide offline network connectivity in the event of a disaster or network outage. In 2017, we were interfacing with volunteers and activists working with the People’s Open Network. Based on their work we began researching disaster radio concepts for mesh nodes and offline p2p networks created by modifying router firmware. It seemed evident to us that there was potential for offline network connectivity that would allow neighbors to exchange messages and even set up a lo-fi homepage for emergency information and updates. We have since only seen major uses for this abroad beyond the disaster use cases. If there is a future for technology like this we’ve backlogged our current work for now and hope to maybe pull it out or repurpose it in the near future.
If you are interested in learning more about the projects we are developing join us to get plugged into our research distribution list sharing brief updates about new work we are exploring.
