Terminally lazy?
Inspect our gadgets
CUTTING-EDGE gadgets were once the sole preserve of technophiles who had the inside track on the hottest apps and hardware. But as smartphones and increasingly sophisticated technology become part of our everyday lives, retailers are realigning themselves to cater to the growing middle-class market for the latest labour-saving gizmos.
A wave of new products is about to hit the market promising to free up time for busy families, from story-reading robots to devices that turn your home into a supermarket.
But some experts warn that things may be going too far, stealing people away from the things that matter.
Tech expert Jodie Cook, director of JC Social Media explains: “I don’t think these labour-saving gadgets are actually saving people time. Once you take into account the time spent researching them, buying them, talking about them and messing about with them, they probably don’t save any much at all. Over the long term I think they will mean less admin and fewer mistakes, but probably at the expense of patience and tolerance.
“It’s important to distinguish between tedious things that you want to automate and things that you want to have time to do more of. I would have thought that reading your kids a bedtime story was something that you want to do rather than something you’d like to outsource to a robot!
“The key is to automate the rubbish in favour of spending time on the things that actually matter,” he adds.
So here’s a rundown of the latest time-saving gadgets on the market, destined to make your life immeasurably better. Aye, right.
THE TERTILL
Doing the garden can be one of the most back-breaking of chores. Happily you can get a robot to do it for you. From roboticist Joe Jones – the brains behind the Roomba vacuum robot – comes the Tertill, an autonomous weed-whacker which patrols the garden looking for invading dandelions and dockens to terminate with a buzz of its inbuilt strimmer. It can’t mow the grass yet, but it’s coming soon.
RØST
For those who really, really love their coffee, the RØST is the answer to your dreams. A winner of the best new product award for technology at World of Coffee Budapest last year, the super-expensive coffee machine roasts about 3.5 ounces at a time. But its main strength is the sheer amount of control it provides to let you tweak the process to your specific tastes. It even has built-in wi-fi to monitor it via smartphone.
STORYTIME SPIDEY
With all these gadgets to play with, mum and dad probably won’t have time to read junior her bed-time story. But hey, don’t feel bad, there’s a gadget for that too. From Robotic toy company Sphero comes an interactive Spider-Man toy which responds to voice commands and guides kids through over 400 pages of superhero story content. Enough to tire out even the most energetic of Spidey fans in time for bed. Bad robot? Bad parent more like.
AMAZON DASH WAND
Not content with taking over the online marketplace, Amazon now wants to take over your home ... shopping. Their dash wand – currently only available in the US – lets you scan barcodes on products you own and puts them instantly into your online shopping basket, ready for delivery at the click of a button. And now that the retailer has taken over fancy upmarket Whole Foods Ltd, expect quinoa, kale and gluten-free everything to top users’ shopping lists.
INACTIVITY TRACKER
With so many buttons to press and widgets to twiddle, the average techie is going to be needing a long lot of lying down time. But in case you over do it, help is at hand with office-design icons Herman Miller and Yves Béhar’s Live OS. The operating system can be built into furniture and encourages recumbents to be more active during the day, delivering 20,000 volts to the body if you’ve been slumping slug-like for too long. Just kidding. Inbuilt sensors prompt you to change your posture or stand up or walk around. There’s even a standing desk which can remember your preferred settings.
SNAPCHAT SPECTACLES
These hi-tech specs are among the hottest items around, if you can get a hold of them. Originally only avail- able from pop-up kiosks in the US, they are now appearing online. A spin-off from the hugely popular mobile phone app, the devices let you record 10 seconds of video which you can access and post online, perfect for giving relatives a thrilling minute-by-minute account of little Timothy’s recital of Rachmaninov’s piano concerto no. 2.
BIKI UNDERWATER DRONE
For those already tired of aerial drones, the next generation is here – a drone that swims like a fish and films underwater. Unlikely to be seen down the local swimming baths, though, as it sells for $1,000 (£785). So one for those with a private swimming hole. Or might make an excellent Christmas gift for Nessie hunters. Have you not been watching The Loch?
KURI ROBOT NANNY
No, it’s not Eve, Wall-E’s robotic object of desire. Cute little Kuri is the next step in robotics, a three-foot tall bot which will memorise the layout of your home and cruise around on a mission to entertain you and your children. It can be trained to alert you to visitors by sending a message to your smartphone, but it’s more than just an ultra-expensive voice-controlled doorbell – playing music, audiobooks and podcasts from its four microphones while snapping pics from a camera in its eye.