1. Simplicity in design

It’s hard to simplify; simplicity is the new luxury. Life is way too complicated humans are on the brink of being able to deal with this complexity. It will be the job of the integrator to design systems to help simplify people’s lives in their daily tasks.

This doesn’t just mean controlling things around the house but interacting with their calendars their day-to-day and likely their work and recreational schedules.

Gone should be controlling everything with your phone or a tablet-like device. Bring back tactile controls like buttons and knobs. Voice will grow but, as sensors get more advanced and sophisticated, combining these with machine learning and AI control systems will take a lot of the manual actions out of the equation.

Many “automations” will happen based automatically on data generated by the sensors and our interaction with them.  This will happen in a bespoke way as needed when conditions are met.

2. Design thinking

We can’t hang our hat on delivering technology to people. We need to be improving people’s lives. The technology should live in the background and should be stitched together to meet the needs of the stakeholders.

With technology and life getting more and more complicated it will be paramount to deploy design thinking and lots of empathy in the front end to properly design systems to benefit the end users. Gone should be the days of selling package A, B and C.

Immersive is here to stay. Immersive content will finally become the norm. Systems are even in cars now and content will continue to explode.

And then querying, we will need to master how to ask the right questions to get the right results.  The new field of prompt engineering will work its way into our industry. Knowing how to ask the right questions will be key so we can design the systems of the future that will meet all the stakeholders’ needs. This will require a different way of thinking and breaking some habits that we currently have, and we’ll be tightly associated with mastering empathy skills and design thinking.

3. Data storage and management

We will be in a unique area of needing to store data, keep it safe and keep it from getting corrupted.  Data gathered by all the sensors will be critical to having a system meet the needs of its users as well as continue to adapt as it gathers more data in a bespoke manner.

We will need to become much more proficient in networking and cyber security policies.

Gone will be passwords and likely will be replaced with pass keys and other tools that were randomly and our passwords and eliminate the dangers of the past of users creating passwords that can be guessed or hacked.

4. Sensors

We will be deploying tons of sensors to monitor everything and generate data so that decisions can be made. This is from all aspects: wellness, health, convenience, entertainment, work, study, special needs you name it.

Sensors, the data they generate, and the intelligence behind the aggregation of that data (machine learning, AI, and algorithms as three examples) will be key to deploying next-gen automated systems.

 

This Tech Predictor is written by CEDIA senior director of technology and standards Walt Zerbe. To find the rest of the Connected Tech Predictors for 2024, click on this link.