We live in a glorious age of technological convergence. There’s very little your phone, or rather pocket computer, can’t do. It’s the pinnacle of technological convergence. Almost.

Here’s my estimate and ideals for what I’ll be carrying around over the next decade. From what I’m carrying today to what I want to carry (pretty much nothing). I carry everything in my pockets.

Firstly, today.

These are my normal daily carrying setups. Either a thin wallet to carry my money card and drivers license, or a wallet case for my iPhone XR, plus my house key and car dongle, sunglasses, and airpods. It’s not too much to carry, really. But the clutter in my pockets and the number of items I have to keep track of is annoying.

This is what I expect in the next few years. I’d have ditched my cards already if I could use a digital version of my drivers license and paywave was more readily available in New Zealand (it’s an issue that’ll hopefully change soon). Ideally all I’ll need in a few years will be my phone (seen here as iPhone 4-sized, because smaller is better), my sunglasses, my airpods and my watch. I don’t see this as too wild an advance.

The key and house keys are a bit more speculative. Firstly, I’d need a car that had the ability to be driven and unlocked with just my phone or watch present. Smart locks for house doors have, so far as I’ve researched, more downsides than upsides (they recommend you still take a physical key, they need batteries or to be wired, if power goes who knows what’ll happen), so this may be a little too optimistic.

Now we’re in dreamland. A 2025-2030 setup. This is almost as converged as I could hope for. Augmented reality glasses (rumoured here) taking over the function of the phone, watch and sunglasses. Airpods, pro or otherwise, with noise cancellling features, to cut off annoying outside sound. However, imagine the glasses also feature bone-conduction headphones built-in.