Home dashboard / bedside devices
asked 2015-06-03 18:29:45 +0200
Since I got my Jolla, my old N9 has been sitting on my bedstand serving as an alarm clock. I've seen other people mount their old phones near their front doors to give them summaries of their calendars for the day. These phones are giving people glanceable information when they wake, before they leave the house, and when they return to bed.
I think this is a new class of portable device, a "smart clock radio", that could do with exploring further. At their most basic, they only need to display the same information as the Events view, but with the clock added.
Possible features:
- Always on clock, including alarm mode. Alarm could be beep, music or internet radio.
- Agenda view extracted from calendars.
- Traffic congestion report.
- News headlines
- During the day, it could become a digital photo frame overlaid with a clock, and maybe function as a music player or DLNA client/server/control point.
- Time-based profiles, such as switching between a dim clock during the night, changing to a bright agenda view after the alarm clock has gone off, then photo frame and so on.
Silica, with its themed ambiences, would be a great fit for all this. It would just need a different UI design to be suited to these functions.
The hardware spec for this is very low. It doesn't need to have much battery, if at all, as it would generally be mounted somewhere it could be permanently plugged in. Some limited portability would be useful, but isn't essential. Wi-fi would be the only network connectivity required, and most of the sensors found in modern mobile devices would be irrelevant and support for them wouldn't be needed. This means it would be suited to a new small cheap tablet/large phone type device with a wall or desk mount or dock, or as a good replacement OS for old android phones, that wouldn't require a 100% hardware working port of Sailfish. The current community ports for the N9 and Nexus 4 would probably be good to go right now, it would just need the new UI on top.
I've had a quick look around and haven't yet found anyone doing this sort of thing. Archos have dabbled in bedside devices, but don't address the agenda use case. Some of the cheap internet radios are designed for the bedside, but they're not what you would call 'smart' devices.
Any thoughts?