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Honestly, it’s an innovation that we’re not sure we really need, but we’re still pretty intrigued.
Consider the Notti Light, from Witti Design, purveyor of “Amazing Little Things.” The Notti Light is a “smart light” and it’s intended to allow you to monitor notifications — as indicated by different colors of light — without having to have your phone in arm’s reach at all times. The idea is that you can still be hooked in and you’ll have the power and / or discretion to monitor for yourself. Ignore the CNN alerts but go to your phone for an incoming call, and such.
It seems neat, but also a little aggressive and, ultimately, a little annoying. It links to your phone via Bluetooth, which is convenient, and can also function as a wake up alarm light and music speaker (?). Oh, and it’s a lamp with various “mood lighting” options. Obviously.
In theory, it’s awesome. It lets you be aware of various notifications and alerts without inherently compelling you to already engage with them. It’s somewhere between the Do Not Disturb function and sensory notification overload. As Ozy reports:
Alfred Wong, the CEO of Hong Kong-based Witti, which makes the lamps, says that they want the device to help people focus on what matters most, by “filter[ing] out all the noise” produced by our gadgets, reducing the need to check our phones constantly.
Sounds great. We could all stand to have a little more distance from our phones.
In practice, it sounds chaotic and stressful. Different colors for different types of notifications feels overwhelming. A particularly active group chat could turn the lamp into a strobe light. Can it distinguish between work email and personal? Or promotional shopping code emails? And the alarm light: how can you train your brain to wake up to a certain light when you’re experiencing a variety of lights all night?
Still, Witti is responding to a need, or at least a want. Notti began as a Kickstarter that raised more than $55,000 in 30 days. Moreover, as Ozy points out, visual notification features are widely appreciated in the hearing-impaired community.
