5G - Lewis Hamilton

In 2019, the world was introduced to 5G. This new technology had capabilities to completely change the mobile landscape in terms of speeds and latency. The problem? It was all very intangible for the average 4G consumer. How do you demonstrate the benefits to the consumer when real life examples were few and far between?

My role was to craft out creative examples of how 5G could become relevant to the consumer by thinking forward and predicting how certain technologies could evolve and benefit from Vodafone 5G. We also had use of one of the fastest men on the planet, Lewis Hamilton. Three routes were selected:

1) Gaming - proving that low latency online gaming would hugely benefit the end users. I engaged with Magic Leap and signed off using there ‘spacial computing’ headset that Lewis Hamilton would wear as he discussed 5G gaming whist playing through a few games.

2) In a world first, with We Are Social and The 5G's, we used 5G to make two internet-of-things connected pianos which both, were in different places, to enable Lewis to play a duet with musician and producer Jay Keys in real-time. Two Yamaha baby Grand Pianos situated in different places were used. These acoustic pianos had a sensor and actuator system that allowed them to detect what keys are being pressed, as well as play back recordings of previous performances. Vodafone connected each piano to a laptop over the USB-Midi interface. When a note was played on the piano, the midi signal was sent to the laptop. Once in the cloud it was passed back to the second laptop, and then on to the second piano, which would, in real time, play the note on the keyboard and the same in the other direction at the same time.

3) Drones - Lower latency and larger broadcast distances would enable remote point-of-view (POV) drone racing transmitting via 5G. We used Junior drone racing champion Kelsey Hunt to teach Lewis through the ins and outs of POV drone racing.

Project developed at We Are Social as a Creative Technologist.