Terra is an AI-based navigator with an open-source design

Modern Works and Panter & Tourron created Terra, a pocket-sized screen-less device that aims to replace smartphones for navigation in urban areas or during hikes. The idea behind the non-device, as Modern Works likes to call it, is to leverage the power of generative artificial intelligence (chatGPT) and Google Places’API to offer users a tool that leads them through a walk in a more organic and less intrusive way.

Astin le Clercq

The product took clear inspiration from gorpcore, the fashion trend of wearing outdoor apparel as streetwear, and it’s therefore quite different from other similar attempts at post-smartphone devices such as the Rabbit or the Humane AI Pin. It also reminds of a digital (and larger) “worry stone”, the smooth and polished gemstones used as stress relievers, especially by New Age practitioners.

The idea behind the product was to create a tool that seamlessly blends technology with the environment and turns the device into a magical compass. “To a large extent, the digital interface was inspired by fictional devices like the one from Jumanji, where symbols and imagery materialize in a manner that blurs the lines between the magical and the technological,” said Modem Works co-founder Astin le Clercq.

To create the routes, users need to use companion software to input text prompts such as “a leisurely walk with a coffee stop”. The tool does the rest, and the directions are then given via a series of haptic feedback and unobtrusive indications that only appear when requested or when the user is going in the wrong direction. Unlike other AI-based devices that have tried to ride the generative AI wave, Terra was not born with the audacious promise of becoming the next big thing after the smartphone. Inspired by the DIY ethos of Stewart Brand's Whole Earth Catalogue and Enzo Mari's “autoprogettazione” philosophy, the designers have instead chosen to fully open-source Terra. The device's schematics and design files are readily available on GitHub, inviting everyone to download and modify them as they see fit.