We’ve become increasingly dependent on our smartphones screens – looking down at them while we drive, walk, stand, or sit. We’re distracted by our phones, placing ourselves in dangerous situations by looking away from our surroundings. We’ve become aware of the dangers and have tried to use voice assistants to keep our eyes up and off our screens. Siri, Google Now, Cortana still need us to touch the smartphones screens to confirm commands or navigate elsewhere. Fingertips Lab, a company formed by former GM Innovation head P.K. Mishra, is introducing O6, which is a device which will keep your eyes off your screen.
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The O6 isn’t a new idea, but the execution is done well and could make controlling your phone while driving or walking much easier. The O6 is a rotary controller which controls your smartphone through the devices dial and button. The small device attaches to a watch band, the car steering wheel, or onto a backpack strap. It’s always in an easy to reach location so you can quickly use it to control the phone.
The O6 doesn’t work out of the box, though. The device uses an app on iOS collection emails, reminders, and messages, into a list that can be read out loud. An artificial intelligence scrubs the data to read emails and give you predetermined responses or open maps when someone messages you an address. The app is essential for reading messages or tweets aloud, and without it, the rotary dial isn’t anything more than a cool accessory.
O6 by Fingertip Labs is available on Kickstarter, with $66,166 raised out of their $100,000 goal. If you pledge $99 or more, you’ll snag yourself an O6 in tangerine orange, glacier blue or cool gray. The device won’t ship until February of 2017, and will retail for $149 then.
The device gives me mixed feeling – I’m worried the voice assistant won’t work as well as the video explains, but as artificial intelligence gets smarter, the O6 does seem possible. While I wouldn’t use the device often, I would want to use it when I’m driving or out on a run. In other cases, I would rather pull out my phone and look at the screen instead of having someone read messages out loud to me. Now, if the O6 works better then promised I could find myself using the device more than I would anticipate.
Tell us in the comments below if you’re going to back the O6 or if you’re going to wait for the reviews of the device to roll out next year!