iWallet

A solution for all your budgeting needs

Introducing, the iWallet— A wallet that actually SAVES you money! This wallet links all accounts and credit cards owned by the user to make sure the user is staying on budget and debt free. This intelligent wallet can distinguish between a need and a want for every individual and unique situation. The product will vibrate gently to alert the owner when purchasing something unnecessary. The product vibrates more abruptly if the user is obviously splurging and needs to reconsider the purchase. The wallet also displays a budget scale consisting of red and green LED's to communicate to the user when they are approaching their budget and need to watch their spending. The user can even input the desire to save up for a vacation or need to pay off a large bill soon, and the wallet will draw an even stricter line between wants and needs.

In only its first year on the market, the iWallet has saved its users $26 million in unnecessary purchases and all users have benefited from its built in alert system. Check out these real reviews from real users:

“I have used my iWallet for several months now, primarily because of its seamless integration of my bank accounts. In my first three months using iWallet, I was finally able to save up to take my new wife on our honeymoon to Barbados! That could’ve never happened without this product.”

“iWallet is hands-down the best personal finance tool. I am constantly aware of my spending habits and am making better financial decisions because of it. Thanks iWallet!”

But buyers beware.... the wallet completely blocks access to its contents once the user has gone over budget. Its discretion is both a blessing and a curse.

Other enchanted objects the group considered:

1. A treadmill that calculates your ideal workout time (based on Fitbit steps and diet) and won’t let you off until you finish. Could be awful on days you eat too much in that it doesn’t let you off to the point of exhaustion and you collapse on a running treadmill!

2. A floor that can detect how many people are in a room. Could be used to detect house parties while parents are out of town. If too many people are there, the floor could heat up and kill everyone at the party!

3. A liquor bottle that connects to your ignition in your car. It reports to the police if you have drank too much and are about to drive (another possibility is that it watches your bank transactions and knows if you spent too much money at the bar, therefore, you’re drunk).

4. Imagine an autonomous car with crash avoidance features; it’s programmed to crash into the safest car on the road (as opposed to a car that is likely to cause death) in the event of an unavoidable collision. What happens when drivers and passengers of safe vehicles learn that other cars are programmed to hit them?

5. Imagine a personalized hotel room that configures its settings to match your preferences at home. When you check-in, your home profile follows you to the hotel room and adjusts the room to match your favorite room temperature, bed/pillow softness, lighting, tv shows, shower head/ water pressure, etc. so you can pick up right where you left off. In many cities, police officers are authorized to inspect hotel guest records at any time without a warrant. So one of the dangers here is that a crooked cop potentially has full access to your home. What are some other potential risks?

6. Strapped for cash but fed up with hidden fees and brutal credit card interest rates? No problem - your bank just rolled out a new smart coin to replace credit cards. Just drop your coin through the in-store kiosk and receive an instant loan. You can choose a reasonable payback period that fits your budget, and as long as you make your payments, you never have to pay more than the amount of the loan. But if payments are missed, your bank will decline any transactions that it determines to be less important than the loan.

7. If you arrive late to important meetings and dates, this is your biggest problem and others biggest problem about you, then The Murphy System will make you learn the hard way. It finds where you are and compares your location to where you need to be Google calendar. If you don't leave the place you are at, to reach your meeting on time, it starts The Murphy Law Effect which creates more problems and delays such as locking your front door, not allowing your car to start, auto-drives in a manner that you encounter every stop sign, not letting you get a parking spot and so on. Due to this you will reach the place after a much longer delay than usual and cause you more humiliation and inconvenience.

8. If objects were people, for unorganized people it will be a big problem. Imagine a system where all your personal belongings are accounted for and if you can't find something, instead of beeping to alert you, it becomes humanized and nags you— tells you how irresponsible you are and gives you a long lecture on how simple life becomes when you are organized. Also while it says these things it is extremely rude and insensitive. Finally, it may tell you where the lost item is.

9. Saying things that you don’t necessarily mean, and have its real meaning consequences could be interesting. For example, “I will be dead if I don’t get up on time” translates to if you don't get up your bed turns into a coffin. Sarcasm can be a lot of fun in this concept.

10. In addition to above, imagine if you are singing in shower, and you sang a song with the lyric “put me on the video”. But the system don’t know it’s just a lyric and really broadcast your video to your colleagues…

Recommendations

- Increasing user input as to what they would like considered a “need” and a “want,” for example, the user can tell the device that diapers are a necessity and not to block the transaction

- Including a feature which can unlock the wallet in case of an emergency. To limit extreme use of the feature, perhaps it can only be used a set number of times, perhaps once a month or three times ever

- Vigorous usability testing to identify any user frustrations or unsatisfactory allowance/disallowance of transactions

-Automated "learning" of the user and their habits; the product can adapt its judgements of needs and wants based on past behavior and external information on the user (e.g. social media)