Back in the day, tech had a pretty simple job description—it did what it said it did.
A washing machine washed clothes. A clothes iron, funnily enough ironed clothes. Earphones let you listen to audio and phones were meant to talk to someone. And that was it. No AI-powered lifestyle enhancement or some extra shenanigans for no reason at all. Just a product doing the thing it was made to do.
Then came the smartphone, essentially a mobile phone but smarter—which also made sense and was very helpful—it brought connectivity, entertainment, knowledge, everything together in one compact, mobile device.
However, somewhere along the way, tech companies collectively decided that one function wasn’t enough anymore for other devices also. Maybe they got inspired from Rancho from the penultimate scenes of 3 Idiots. Maybe it was something else altogether. But all of a sudden, everything had to become five other things.
I think, although I could be wrong, that it all began with the smartwatch.
A watch used to tell time. That’s literally the entire reason watches exist. Unfortunately, all of a sudden, that very simple purpose started becoming obsolete. Or at least, that’s what the tech companies told us.
And thus came along the smartwatch—revolutionary, ground-breaking and amazing. It connected to your already smart phone and sent you message and call notifications and allowed you to respond to them, allowed you to change music, look at maps and a lot of other stuff. Then it started telling you things like how many steps you’d taken, how many calories you’d burned, how much sleep you’d gotten, whether your heart was behaving itself, and now it even tells you if you have sleep apnea. Which in all honesty, is not a bad thing, but the point still stands.
Then came the games. Games? On a watch? Was that really the need of the hour? (pun intended)
And after all this, do we still get to call it a watch? Digital or otherwise? Or has it manifested into an entirely different thing altogether? Some twisted, innovative version of the Ship of Theseus paradox?
And this trend never stopped—it only became bigger and more ridiculous with time.
Now sunglasses aren’t just sunglasses. They’re cameras, speakers, microphones, AI assistants, navigation systems, and data collection devices disguised as eyewear.
Toothbrushes have batteries, and charging cables, and need apps. Toothbrushes????
These remarkable innovations raise some very important questions. When are we going to draw a line on these smart, digital tech, and see them for what they truly are—gimmicks designed to increase the prices of stuff? Sure, these upgrades are helpful–but are they really needed?
Now, taking the crown for these gimmicky innovations, are Apple’s latest rumoured AirPods with cameras. Yes. Cameras. On earphones. The device that literally is meant for the “ear” and not “eye”.
Not because anyone woke up one morning and said, “You know what’s missing from my life? The ability for my earbuds to see things.” But because apparently every gadget now needs to absorb the responsibilities of three other gadgets.
The funniest part?
The cameras reportedly won’t even take photos or videos. Instead, they’ll feed visual information to Siri and Apple’s AI systems so the earbuds can understand your surroundings. They could identify objects, provide contextual information, help with navigation, answer questions about what you’re looking at, and generally act as a visual assistant for your ears. Some reports even suggest gesture recognition and improved spatial awareness could be part of the package.
So basically a poor substitute for peripheral vision. And although one can argue that they would benefit people with visual impairments. But have we already started trusting Siri this much? It’s just gotten an upgrade after years of incompetency and the final rollout hasn’t even happened yet.
But even then. Even if we put the dumb, smart assistant and its questionable capabilities aside, here’s what really gets me.
For the AirPods to do any of this, you’ll still need your phone with you. That’s where the actual processing happens. That’s where Siri lives. That’s where the screen is.
Which raises a very reasonable question: Why not just use the phone?
If I need to identify a plant, read a sign, find directions, or understand what’s around me, I already own a device with a camera, a screen, a processor, and a battery. It’s called a smartphone. You’ve probably heard of it.
Also speaking of batteries, AirPods already spend half their lives reminding us that they’re about to die. Adding cameras to a product that’s already fighting for every minute of battery life is surely going to make matters better.
But this is the reality we live in now—feature overloading in every single device.
A product solves a problem. The problem gets solved. The market gets saturated. Then companies need a reason to sell you the next version at a higher price. So the product gains more features. Then more features. Then even more features. Until eventually nobody remembers what the thing was originally supposed to do.
Call me old-fashioned but I miss the days when devices used to be singular-serving only. And I didn’t need to watch every other—”Here’s Five Things You Didn’t Know Your Apple Watch Can Do” videos.
Right now, it feels like every piece of tech is having an identity crisis. That they are art students who don’t know if they want to be writers, or singers, or actors, or stand-up comedians, or just a corporate person.
At this rate, by 2040 my socks will have a subscription plan and my gas stove will be asking for software upgrades. And that’s a potential future I’m not particularly very excited about or looking forward to.
