Industrial design company Layer and Deutsche Telekom have designed a series of smart home assistants, first unveiled in February at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
Designed by Deutsche Telekom and Layer Design the Concept T design suite includes a holographic hub and a roving personal robot. Dubbed Emma, the assistant appears as a hologram projected inside a glass ball and acts as a smart home hub. The holographic assistant can assist customers with daily tasks, control appliances and conditions in the home, and even facilitate holographic video calls, using integrated smart cameras to scan a user’s face and create their own digital, holographic avatar.
Claudia Nemat, Deutsche Telekom’s member of the board of management for technology and innovation, said: "Concept T is researching how hologram telephony, among other things, could become a reality. The study takes our human-centred understanding of technology a step further, ‘I operate Concept T with a natural voice and gestures. All this will also be made possible by clever AI’."
The companies also showcased Concept Buddy, a small-scale roaming robot that they described as a “friendly butler.” The wheeled design is also outfitted with smart home features, able to monitor room conditions such as temperature and air quality and make adjustments as necessary. It also comes with a built-in projector so it can project messages onto the wall for users, such as rain clouds above plants that need watering.
These products are prototypes at the moment and will not be able available for sale but instead showcase what is possible in homes of the future.