Minimally Required Tech in a Big City

Ever-improving technology becoming a core of city development has contributed a great deal in bringing us convenience and comfort. This focus on technological development can also raise the barriers to entry faced in our professional and personal lives. Trying to match the development and potential of a highly capable smart city can lead us to overcommit, overcomplicate, and overemphasize our reliance on different tech systems.

Just because cities are getting smarter, doesn’t mean we need a broad variety of tech to leverage what’s on offer. Instead, there are ways in which we can minimize our technological reliance while benefiting from everything that better infrastructure has to offer. It starts with the small computer you hold in your pocket, and it really doesn’t need to go much further than that.

Working with Just a Smartphone

The humble smartphone is faster than the computer systems many grew up using. It’s easy to forget thanks to the ubiquity these devices hold, but they far outpace even many early supercomputers, offering thousands of times faster performance while occupying thousands of times less space. Too often we rely on these for simple tasks, and we forget just how capable they are in the rest of their feature set. With the right approach, a single smartphone can replace a huge range of other tech, minimizing your reliance on multiple pieces of tech.

Take playing online slots on modern iGaming services as an example. Websites like GoldSpin and Winmaker were once only possible to play through laptop and desktop systems. Today, players are more likely to connect from smartphones. Whether collecting bonuses like free spins or deposit matches or playing games, the power and convenience of smartphones have led them to usurp other means of access. This same dominance similarly applies to social media and video content, but it could go much further.

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With the right data plan, a smartphone can also act as a router with unlimited bandwidth through which every other device in a house can be connected. With tools like Samsung’s Dex that convert smartphones to something like a desktop computer, you can also more easily engage with work emails and documents. This kind of extended use reduces the reliance we have on other pieces of technology in our homes, though they do require some separate hardware support to be fully explored.

Peripherals and Connections for Convenience

Though it’s technically possible to use an out-of-box smartphone as the basis for almost all your tech needs, peripherals are the best bet to reach the goal of peak effectiveness. What you need will depend on your intended use, but whatever you would like to use your smartphone as, odds are there already exists some tech that will facilitate the process.

If you want to use your smartphone as a hub for home internet, then a powered dock can help with the system’s power consumption so it won’t drain. Anyone looking to turn their phone into a work computer will benefit from a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and a low-profile screen that can be easily tucked away. Gamers might also want to invest in a controller, to minimize the reliance on touch control in more demanding titles. Again, none of these are strictly necessary, but they will overcome the limitations that are inherent when extending smartphone usage.

The Benefits of Avoiding Tech Overload

Having discrete systems for everything technological we want to accomplish can simplify each process, but it also generates disadvantages. More technology means a higher initial purchasing and ongoing power cost, more storage space, and having to clear out additional areas to keep everything installed and plugged in. More tech can mean having to learn more systems, and it can mean difficulty transferring data between those systems.

By keeping everything on one central device, you always know where you stand and what you have available. It also raises the importance of backups, since losing your only primary system will be much more devastating, but this is easily enough taken care of with insurance and careful use. Still, carry your everything tech with you, and you’re always ready to go.

Living in a big city can be expensive, and it can be crowded. Many of us don't have the luxury of maintaining a huge tech library, and we often don't need to. Minimizing this tech can help us take advantage of what a modern city offers in the digital realm, while also focusing the rest of our energy on the physical. We can spend more time walking in nature, seeing shows, eating, or just enjoying the ambiance. There’s a balance here that we’ve tended to forget in the tech age, and minimizing our tech footprint can help recover what we’ve lost.

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