The AI smart glasses with anti-distraction alarms

AI smart glasses are every procrastinators dream – who needs willpower or organisational skills when you’ve got the latest gadgets?

As part of a generational cohort habitually known as digital natives, it seems unfair that we have to focus on work orientated tasks for sustained periods of time… unfortunately, that’s the world our elders have laid out for us. Technology is labelled the chief culprit for our fleeting attention spans and is regularly used as a stick to beat us with, but it just may just hold the secret to keeping us focused in an age of distractions.

Now listed on crowdfunding platform Indiegogo, the canny invention we’re referring to is known as ‘Specs’ (no prizes for guessing what the gadget is). Developed by tech start-up Auctify, this pair of pretty ordinary looking smart glasses have been kitted out with sophisticated AI hardware to monitor how the wearer is utilising their on-screen time, and to nudge them back in line should they start to tail off.

Via an integrated camera inside the frame, the glasses utilise machine learning programming to identify what the owner is looking at, whether that be a laptop, textbook, or even an obnoxious co-worker. From this point the data is recorded and sent to a connected app where it’s broken down into easily accessible analytics and graphs showing your balance between work and play. Think of it as a Fitbit for your daily productivity.

The aforementioned nudging feature comes into effect when a ‘focus session’ is created, and the wearer begins to run afoul of previously set parameters. For instance, if you’ve established the need to cram for an exam and look up to see the reveal for an episode of MTV’s Catfish instead of your syllabus, the Specs will log the deviation and will send instant alerts – including a red light in the lens’ periphery and/or sounds through the built-in speakers.

These are the Specs’ parameters at its most basic level. You can select specific websites and physical tasks to filter through without setting off the notifications and alarms, so that peruse on Twitter to gather quotes for your article, or that brief trip to the kettle won’t be flagged as procrastination in the app’s tracking history. With a view to keeping people as duty oriented as possible, Specs also boasts a hands-free call feature and music playing capabilities.

Obviously, for a device with the innate purpose of monitoring everything you do, privacy instantly springs to mind as a probable issue. However, Auctify has reassured interested parties that all footage used for machine learning is instantly discarded and that all information on accompanying devices is heavily encrypted.

With the initial goal of reaching £7,600 in donations within its 30 day roll out, Auctify has already reached a whopping £38,200 within just six days. Now fully aware of the massive pulling power quick fix solutions like this hold, the start-up is set to begin manufacturing in December and rolling out sales as early as January 2021.

I don’t know about you, but I find the prospect of messing with fellow colleges or classmates donning Specs far more exciting than owning a pair myself. Maybe I’m the obnoxious co-worker.