TITLE: SMARDROBE
SMARDROBE is a smart wardrobe that does not only store your wearables but also knows all of your fashion collection and how to match them. SMARDROBE knows when your fashion piece had been taken out of it or is already put in; and with the screen of SMARDROBE you would be able to mix and match your OOTD using whatever outfits available in the wardrobe without digging through your hangers and piles and trying! Better still, SMARDROBE connects to your smartphone to help your smart-shopping: to avoid that double shopping of the same item. Easier, hassle-free days for greater OOTD and greater shopping! Looking good should be easy.
Some children are so avid about cooking, but parents are afraid they would get burns or cause fire. Some children are simply not exposed to cooking, because these days, home economics are not a popular subject to take in the era of booming technology. Some adults are just aspiring cook who likes to watch Tastemade, but are too afraid of real fire and boiling oil. Or, they become too lazy to cook the most mouthwatering dishes, but complicated, because it took too much space in their shared fridge. If only there is a place with a machine where children, or adults can play the cooking game, and get the real food based on how they have ‘cooked’ it.
Objective
Expose people to more cooking experience without having to manually cook it.
Possible Research & Interview
Mockup
after it’s done… TADDAH
You can eat “your own cooking result!”
Isn’t it anxious to shop dresses online? Or shoes? Especially when it is from overseas and there is no way of shipping it back if the dress does not make us look any better or the shoes bite our feet so hard because they are slightly too small. Who wish to ‘try’ those pieces on the screen before purchasing them? I do.
Objective
Allow customers to digital try the clothes or fashion pieces before buying them online.
Possible Research & Interview
Mockup
You may easily found plenty of blog posts about the best cafes and brunch places in Singapore. There are plenty of of apps for you to know the review of endless lists of cafes, restaurants and bars – you can even book them too right away in the same app. Well, fair enough, hawker centres got some spotlight too. You can google the best hawker centres in Singapore, or where to find the best chicken rice and laksa with the most affordable price. However, is that all? Do you know that the un-google-able fritters stall in Newton Circus and carrot cake stall in one of the Toa Payoh hawker centres are worth the travel and fat? Do you know there are hawker centres in the middle of HDB with the best western food stalls? Isn’t it wonderful if there is a review about each of the stalls when you visit a hawker centre you have never visited before? I think, they deserve more exposure and we deserve more information.
Objective
Connecting customers and tourists to as many as possible small F&B businesses in hawker centres.
Possible Research & Interview
Mockup
What is Smart Nation?
Smart Nation is a government-initiated-and-supported movement to create, implement and encourage the use of digital technology that is integrated well into daily life of the people. The aim is to solve problems, increase welfare and standard of living of the society through the usage of technology.
Smart Nation identifies five key domains that will have significant impact on the people: trasnport, home and environment, business productivity, health and enabled ageing, and public sector services.
Citizens and anyone who have ideas on how to make this Smart Nation a full reality in Singapore are welcomed to submit their proposals. The government will facilitate what is needed to make that idea come true.
“Smart Nation is a whole-of-nation journey.”
Milestones
Smart Nation has introduced some mobile application which can already be used today such as HealthHub, myENV, MyTransport.SG, NLBmobile and many more. These apps has increased efficiency, mobility and connectivity between citizens, businesses and government.
However, Smart Nation movement is not only limited to mobile applications and software. For example, in 2016, there was a launch of SGInnovate, a new agency formed to support Singapore’s startup ecosystem. In May 2016, the first 3D printing centre was opened in NTU, Singapore in order to provide more facility that supports innovation solutions and research. Smart home prototypes which allow efficient usage of electricity, safer usage of utilities and easier home monitoring has also been executed at Yu Hua.
From technological hub, agency to development of advanced smart home, as long as the initiative yields a greater living, more cohesive society and more opportunities for everyone, Smart Nation is supporting it.
“And “smartness” is not a measure of how advanced or complex the technology being adopted is, but how well a society uses technology to solve its problems and address existential challenges. Citizens are ultimately at the heart of our Smart Nation vision, not technology!”
Reflection
Based on the research I have done from Smart Nation website and other articles I read about Smart Nation, I could see how big Singapore’s ambition is to utilize pervasive devices to increase mobility and tuning of places. All the mobile applications and smart home that are developed are forms of pervasive devices, as these technology is integrating so well into our lives and how we do things everyday that one day it feels so natural, and would easily be taken for granted in the future. Our movement from places to places are also ‘dictated’ by what we see or discover from the pervasive devices, allowing efficiency as we can plan far ahead before moving our feet. Lastly, tuning of different places be it a place that we are so familiar with, bored with, or unfamiliar with is made possible by Smart Nation initiatives too. The smart devices and technologies could adapt to different situations, allowing the users to swiftly adapt too. Or sometimes, these smartness of things could even make ‘tuning of places’ unnecessary anymore eg. imagine an air-conditioner which can automatically tune itself to the temperature outside. We would not need to worry that our bedroom is hot as hell during the hottest summer because the aircon cools it for you without you pressing the on button. All in all, Smart Nation is not about the coolness of the technology, but how those cooly-developed technology improve the citizens’ lives effectively.
However, from one of the articles I read, which is about comparing New York City and Singapore for being a smart city (Singapore is the size of a city actually), I realize the realization of a smart city/nation cannot be done simply from having all the smart facilities around. Yes, they are smart that they can solve certain problems directly, but a smart city/nation is also about how smart the people of that place could utilize the smart technology. For example, I do not think a lot of people have been relying on NLBmobile to get real-time update about new books or newly-returned books, or to check what’s in the rack. From what I observe from myself and my friends, we are still relying on NLB websites and not the app to explore NLB digitally. This way, the smart app is not utilized and it would not contribute to make Singapore a smarter nation.
Design Intervention Proposal for Smart Nation
Wireless Charging: Wire.Less
Disclaimer: it is purely imaginary and to be made into reality, the technology in the market is still not available.
Imagine going to a place eg. mall where you do not need to bring around your charging cable nor powerbank, because anytime your battery needs to be recharged, the wireless chargers from the ceiling would do it for you. Wireless charging, less wired your day is.
PS: Like a bluetooth transfer, but it is phone-energy transfer.
