It is the last week of our stay in Hyderabad and marks the end of nearly twelve months of our minimalistic, easy camp sort of life in the city. As I go around the house to finger count the number of items to be packed including a few kitchen utensils, books and couple of foldable things that made our only possessions here, I tend to neglect the small unassuming Bose Revolve SoundLink Speaker and the Echo Dot with Alexa sitting in an obscured corner. Taking a step back and reflecting on the days spent here, I realize my blunder. I was overlooking the fact that these lightweight, small size devices were the ones that had brought significant change to our prosaic life in a house of mostly empty spaces and near-zero assets.

Fifteen months ago, when we were packing and winding up in Singapore, my heart cringed the most at the sight of my beloved Sony DVD Home Theatre System getting dismantled and Sony Smart TV being disassembled to be packed and shipped to India. The idea of temporary dysconnectivity to the digital world of entertainment was painful.  After relocation to the city of Bengaluru and reassembling of the devices, our lives were, though, restored to normal where Airtel company gave us Broadband connectivity to run our Smart TV, computers, mobile and landline phones, very soon, life took a turn towards dysconnectivity yet again, by a move to the city of Hyderabad. We found ourselves temporarily thrown again into a lifestyle of previous century with minimum possessions and no fancy gadgets for our daily entertainment. To live in a rental villa with minimum furniture and large open spaces was indeed a frightening thought.

So, the only hope of connectivity to the digital world of music and TV being the Internet, we lost no time in subscribing to ACT Fibernet with 50Mbps Internet speed. Bit by bit our digital world of entertainment returned to us with live streaming of our favourite internet radio stations on our Smartphone, and TV serials and news channels on our humble Personal computer, enhanced considerably, very soon, by equally humble looking devices.

Indeed, it is a marvel how the internet and the Smart devices that seamlessly connect to internet and to each other can change our lives and our lifestyles. Internet connected to Echo Dot with Alexa voice recognition service gives an unlimited range of music and a Le-Bose revolve sound-link speaker that seamlessly connects through Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, gives an enhanced Surround quality sound from voices playing on PC or Mobile phones. The best part is the ease of carrying these light weight handheld devices to any place or space of our desire. We can enjoy movies on Netflix in our first-floor room where sitting in front of our PC screen, we can control the room’s ambient light – the colour and amount of lighting of Wipro Smart LED, right from the soft touch button of our mobile. Echo Dot Alexa is a delightful companion during our tea/coffee, book reading or short- nap sessions on holidays, which at the smallest instruction plays our choice of music, makes calls to any place we desire, tells us the weather conditions, traffic and any useful information that we want to know.

The ease and flexibility that these lightweight digital devices have given, to enliven our empty living spaces is a big gain over the small compromise on picture resolution and sound quality and occasional dropping of internet streaming, as compared to that on robust large fixed devices.  I eagerly look forward to going back to a 4K, high- quality picture on a 55’ screen and Dolby sound quality music in my Bengaluru home, however, I am also pretty sure I will miss the digital entertainment world that the small devices created and brightened the otherwise open and banal vacant spaces of our Hyderabad home.