What is this Penang island to a Digital nomad?
Penang the island of beautiful beaches! It has its own airport and a jungle (national park). The island is essentially located just a few kilometers off the coast of north Malaysia and it is very famous among Digital Nomads for its english speaking population and great weather. To drive across the island would probably take an hour or so in normal traffic, quite a small island indeed.

So why would you wanna go to this remote island? Well I would like to start with some history, a few hundred years ago Malacca was occupied and ruled by The United Kingdom. And they chose Penang to be a strategic location for their government base and there fore built George town. Fun fact, one of the generals thought the progress of building the town was slow so he ordered his men to fire cannons filled with silver coins and jewelry into the jungle. This indeed got the workers motivated to work faster! Anyway this leaves Penang today with many historical buildings in the Renaissance era architecture. Imagine that architecture and then packed with a population of 3 million people of mixed race (60% Chinese). Very interesting indeed!

Who am I, why listen to me?
The short story is: I was raised in Sweden but for as long as I can remember my family traveled to new places around the world every year. I even have pictures where you can see me in a stroller next to the Big Ben in London. No memories from this trip though…

Anyway, this have allowed me a lot of perspective at an young age and I decided quite early that I wanted to work in another country than Sweden. A check list was created containing what I wanted from the city of choice and at the top; Warm weather, good internet connection and close to the sea. Moved to Malta after finishing my Master degree in Computer Science and from there researched and started living the location independent lifestyle with some newly found friends.

Our number one focus when traveling is on being effective with our work where ever we go. Currently traveling around in all the beauties Asia has to offer! Sooo back to the point, is Penang, Malaysia a good location to work from?

Culture

The population of Malaysia consists of 30 million people and the majority are muslims, Kristians, Buddhists or Hindu. This allows the country to be multi cultural and has been for many centuries. You as a tourist will have the chance to visit a Mosque then walk one block and pop into St Johns church after that another block and you might find a Hindu temple! It is worth mentioning that they do indeed have a Islamic government but the structure is democratic in its nature. They have many benefits and policies in place like child support and good university loans for students, but these are only available if you are a “Malay” which requires you to be a Muslim or of the old generation of Malays.

The people of Penang are super friendly, for example we had a Airbnb host bringing us out to dinner and showing us around in George Town.

Weather

It is basically around 30 degrees celsius during the whole year, so bring your swimwear and come over when ever you feel like! The rainy season in Penang is around May — June and it gets very humid, so you might want to dodge that.

Digital Nomadness

There are a lot of Co-working spaces available around George Town area. We ended up in @Cat which had very good internet speedzz (around 70mbits) and all the office accessories you would ever need as a Digital Nomad! We also found great networking opportunities here at @Cat. They hosted regular event like lectures, Hackathon, guest speakers etc etc.

Side note: I readjusted a shirt at FOX custom tailor in north of George town for 15 euros, so you might want to check that out if you want to custom tailor a suit or something like that.

Play

Activities on the Penang island include Hiking in the jungle (National park), Sailing, wind surfing, kite surfing, swimming, a lot of water activities are available. I wouldn't recommend snorkling or diving around here as the water is not clear at all. For that the locals here repeatedly refer me to Sabah, Malaysia (another state).

The Food in Penang is of a wide variety since Malaysia is very diverse and has a mix of Chinese, Muslims and Indians living “together”. In Penang there are many Chinese especially so it is easy to find many places where this specific cuisine is offered.

Stay

Malaysia has a great visa on arrival going on where many nationalities can enter the country for three months.

If you are into the flag theory from Nomad Capitalist, Malaysia might be very interesting to you. You can get the residency by investing 400 000 dollars into a house or 200 000 dollars into an apartment. If this is above your price point there is also another alternative to get a VISA by depositing a fixed amount of around 30 000 dollars converted into MYR (local currency) into a Malay bank account. That is the Malaysia’s My Second Home program — often called MM2H. You also need to pass a medical test, and purchase health insurance, and thats about it.

This will buy you a Permanent residence status with a ten year, multiple-entry visa that is renewable at the end of the ten year period. There is no laws on minimum residency, so you are free to come and go as you wish. You can find a link to Andrew Hendersons blog post regarding this topic in the source list in the end of this post.

Regarding housing we did only Airbnb and rented entire places, apartments just north of George town. This way we got away with paying around 40 Euros and got 100 sqm, with two bedrooms, two toilets, kitchen and the appreciated sea view! :) Also a pool in the common area! We heard from other digital nomads that you could rent a room in hostels for around 10 euros so if you are on a tight budget you might want to look into that as well.

Transportation in Penang is very cheap, you can use the local bus system which is surprisingly good for how little the locals use it. You might have to wait up to 20 minutes sometimes though as the traffic is quite unreliable here. But you only have to pay 1 RM which is 0.2 Euros for a one way ticket. What we ended up doing mostly was to use GRAB, since with this alternative we got Air condition and the drivers were pretty good at avoiding traffic jams. Also here we payed around 2 euros for a 20 minute ride.

Other
The average monthly income in Malaysia is around 400 euros.

If you have a University diploma in for example engineering the average salary is around 800 euros.

It is also worth mentioning that it is very common for the average person to have multiple income streams. Salary, other business, airbnb (let a room), multiple properties and land.

Omg this was so good I want more content!
If this is you right now, Check out our Instagram page where we post Hacks,Journals and Inspirational content all related to How you can become a successful Digital Nomad!!
https://www.instagram.com/thenomadrevolution/

Also if you are into veganfoodz check out our Instagram page with loads of fantastic images, recipes and tricks on how to turn to the Vegan side of life!
https://www.instagram.com/vegannomadz/

☞ Click here to sign up at Airbnb and receive €30 off for your first booking, and another €15 once a trip is completed.

☞ Click here to sign up at Booking.com and receive €15 off for your first booking. Great way to save some money on that next trip of yours! ;)

The responsible Authors
Simon Irengård Gullstrand

Sources:
https://nomadlist.com/george-town-penang-malaysia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia

http://nomadcapitalist.com/2013/11/11/easy-permanent-residence-in-asia-malaysia-investor-visa-program/

https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-notable-benefits-of-being-a-Bumiputra-Malay-in-Malaysia?share=1

Preface

This article was written by me, Simon Irengård Gullstrand, and Jonas Wahlfrid during our masters in Computer science.

ABSTRACT

This paper examines if the use of Augmented Reality technology could improve the maintenance procedure of an off-theshelf office appliance; a coffee machine, compared to the traditional paper-based manual format. This scenario has been investigated by building a prototype to be run on the Microsoft HoloLens to guide a non-technical personnel through a simple repair task of the coffee machine. The evaluation of the prototype was done with an observation by comparing completion times and errors made while letting participants go through a repair task with the prototype vs with a traditional paper-based manual.

INTRODUCTION

Due to usage and aging many appliances and devices suffer from deteriorating usability [15]. This could lead to the appliance being less reliable and additional operation costs due to the malfunction. Malfunctions are time-consuming, expensive and requires a lot of effort. This is why keeping appliances in good condition by regularly maintaining them is important [15]. Today many of these appliances is connected to the Internet to benefit from the advantages it brings. This movement is called the Internet of Things (IoT) [2]. Augmented Reality is becoming more and more popular both as a presentation and interaction means [14]. An augmentation of the real world with virtual objects are called Augmented Reality (AR), contrary to Virtual Reality which is about creating an entire virtual world. In an AR system the virtual information is added on top of the real world view [13]. By mixing a virtual view with real life the user can get additional visual contextual information. The three-dimensional virtual objects are anchored in the surrounding real-world. The user can walk around the three-dimensional virtual objects, viewing them from every angle and interact with them [16]. E.g., an application domain is to display a instruction manual of the object that is to be assembled or disassembled together with the real world view. This ensures that the user does not need to switch between a paper manual and the assembly work, and can therefore focus on both at the same time [7]. Fundamentally the user is able to interact with the virtual world in some way, an example of this could be that the user is able to navigate by moving and looking around in the virtual world. Also to manipulate virtual objects, by moving them or changing their state in some way. For interaction in the AR space and for the users experience to feel as natural as possible one of the input modalities for AR devices today is to recognize hand gestures [17] [10]. The tracking device recognizes preprogrammed gestures and invokes different functionalities based on the gesture and where the user is pointing the device. AR is a great choice regarding guidance in maintenance activities since it has the potential to bring clear instructions to a novice repairer in a distraction free and pedagogical way [14].

Purpose & Motivation

Using AR as an aid for maintenance is not a new concept. However, to a large extent, the AR applications utilized on the market today are mostly used in industrial purposes and for expert users due to that it is still very expensive. For example when maintaining an engine there are a lot of components and it is hard to remember all of them. Also the paper based manual makes it time consuming to look up all the different parts, since it is forced into a 2D space and a form of indexing to list all the information. The AR alternative on the other hand displays the necessary information for every component as the expert repairer looks at that component [1]. This technology will in a couple of years be developed enough and tangible for the consumer market [11]. It is even predicted that the traditional monitor could potentially be replaced with convenient Augmented Reality headgear [11]. Therefore we think there is a real possibility to utilize it for the purpose of quickly maintaining appliances in-house for companies. For example in the past when there was a malfunctioning appliance the users was forced to report the error to the appliance service provider. The service provider had to manually manage and schedule the task to a repairer. The expert repairer then was sent out to the location in question to maintain the appliance. This is time-consuming, expensive and requires a lot of effort. When there is a malfunctioning appliance there should not be the need to call the service provider immediately, there should be a way to guide a nontechnical office personnel to repair the machine if there is a simple error. This is what we are aiming for in our solution.

Solution

The solution we are proposing could potentially save resources and reduce downtime for the company with the appliance by reducing the need for the service providers expert repairer attendance. Where instead the nontechnical office personnel at the company performs simple repair tasks on the appliance themselves. The AR technology approach for maintaining systems has been used for ages with great success, but mostly targeting expert users [14]. For example in a case where technicians worked with maintaining elevators, trials showed that the repair task could be accomplished up to four times faster than before by using the Microsoft HoloLens Augmented Reality (AR) head gear [12]. In our report, we have focused instead only on the novice repairer, in this case an office personnel. The AR technology has the potential to guide a nontechnical novice user in a technical way quicker and more pedagogic with fewer mistakes made, compared to the traditional paper manual format [14]. We aim to create an AR maintenance guiding application for the HoloLens for the purpose of repairing an already existing off-the-shelf coffee machine. By using the HoloLens we can utilize the pros of a hands-free access to augmented reality maintenance guiding and we are able to evaluate if the AR technology is better than the traditional paper-based manual.

Scenario
An expected scenario where our solution is applicable is when an office personnel approaches the coffee machine at the office and it appears to be broken. The office personnel will get notified through the coffee machine user interface that there is an error with the appliance. The office personnel puts on the HoloLens head gear and uses the AR maintenance guidance application to get instructions on how to repair the machines error. The office personnel is guided, step by step throughout the whole repair task which in this case is to replace a screw in one of the containers. After all the steps has been followed the error is repaired and the coffee machine is working again. The office personnel enjoys his coffee.

Research scope

For the purpose of narrowing down the scope of this paper the coffee machine was unplugged and only one simulated mechanical error is be implemented into the maintenance guidance application. Also the application is only deployed on one AR capable headgear device, the HoloLens.

Research question

Based on the purpose and motivation the following research question were raised:

1. How can we prove that repairing a coffee machine is faster and done with less mistakes by a non technical person with the aid of Augmented Reality rather than a traditional paper-based manual?

Expected results

The evaluation have proven that the maintenance of the coffee machine is faster and the office personnel made fewer mistakes with our AR maintenance guidance application compared to a paper-based manual. Also by allowing the repairer a hands-free experience we hoped to increase the chance of this happening. But since users generally are used to following the traditional paper-based manual format the result could also show that paper-based manuals actually are better than our AR maintenance guidance application.

RELATED WORK

This section aims to highlight the relevant state-of-the-art to this paper. Starting off with some differences in how the AR technology can be distributed to devices, then moving into several examples of maintenance aided by AR and how they are similar and different from our study.

Related to the field of AR with the goal of maintenance there has recently been many studies as maintenance is a very im- portant subject as discussed previously. The two mostly used ways of distributing AR applications today are to hand held and head mounted devices. A newly developed head mounted device is the Microsoft HoloLens, which is a battery powered wireless augmented reality Windows 10 computer, that can show the user three-dimensional virtual objects (more on the HoloLens later) [16]. Illustrated in figure 1 is a repairer wear- ing the HoloLens, and in front of him a representation of parts etc presented to him in form of AR objects. Also by pointing the HoloLens onto different real life objects, the software can recognize what it is and present useful information to the re- pairer for that particular object. All of this can also be done as mentioned before with a hand held device like for exam- ple almost any smart phone or tablet with the right software installed, but instead of just glancing you need to hold the device in front of you and pointing it onto the desired object to show AR based information of that object [1]. We think that the allowance of a hands free way of working with the machine while repairing it would benefit the repairer greatly. Instead of being forced to look away from what the repairer is doing and read from the manual and then back to the task, confuses him. To be able to instead mixing the instructions with the view of the machine would be wield much faster and more successful repair scenarios.

The application areas that has been mainly focused by wear- able and AR technologies in maintenance are to provide a in- formation, guidance and instructions e.g., manuals, pictures and being able to immersively collaborate with other people wirelessly (e.g., novice vs. expert) [9]. Studies suggests that AR technologies are feasible for providing maintenance in- structions because they are often faster to use, errors occur less frequently, and the participants endorse the use of the technology [1]. In one study the conclusion was that a novice user would benefit from the AR guidance systems when using them for simple instructions and guidance. But some main- tenance tasks are safety-critical, and it might not be feasible to let novices working by themselves with only the guidance of a technical systems to rely on [1]. In this paper we focus entirely on the novice user, and to see if we can get the same results with the focus of comparing paper-based manual to a AR based manual.

The company thyssenkrupp utilizes the technology of Mi- crosoft HoloLens to give 24 000 elevator service technicians access to augmented reality maintenance guiding and training [12]. The service technicians can visualize the elevator and its components, technical information, service logs, events and alarms ahead of a job, which makes it possible to train personnel, plan work and know which spare parts to bring in advance to going to the actual location. The paper [12] is rel- evant to our work because it shows how AR could be used to maintain a machine, and also how the GUI can look like in order to help the repairer carry out his task.

When working with the elevator the service technicians can get hands-free access to augmented reality maintenance guid- ing through the Hololens headgear. It presents to the service technicians a 3D representation of parts, task orders, safety alerts, service logs, events and alarms, visualized in figure 1. This new way of hands-free interaction can be compared to the traditional approach where the service technicians had to bring a laptop to gain access to the same information.

Trials in [12] have shown that the technicians work on site with the elevator can be done up to four times faster than be- fore by using the HoloLens technology. The HoloLens implementation gets events and alarms from elevators that are connected to thyssenkrupps MAX system, that is built with Microsoft’s IoT management system Azure. By utilizing Microsoft’s Azure IoT Suite [6], elevator data like for example motor temperature, shaft alignment, cab speed and door functioning, are obtained and reported back to the management system for analysis, monitoring and predictions for future maintenance before they occur by flagging the need to replace components and systems before the end of their lifecycle etc [12] [6]. Compared to our work thyssenkrupp has done basically the same thing as we are trying to do, but again with the focus on expert repairers. Their system also obviously involves a lot more components and subsystems, to empower the repairer in his task of repairing the machine. Most of the components connected in this example would in our scenario of aiding a novice repairer repair a coffee machine be unnecessary and probably just confusing for the novice. Our system at the same time as keeping in mind that it is a early proto- type has a very simple UI. But it could also be an advantage in this case since the novice repairer can avoid all the ”clutter”, information overload and focus on the task at hand.

In another recent study a experimental user study was per- formed on a office appliance to evaluate applications for AR [14]. It was done with a hand held device. In this study, the participants were given a task to replace a hard disk drive (HDD) in a laptop, and the completion times and errors be- tween using AR and paper-based manuals were compared. In the first cycle of tests the task of switching an HDD in a lap- top was carried out by 10 people, who were used to working with computers. The time it took to complete the task was about twice as long with the AR-based solution compared to a paper manual. However, there occurred only three mistakes with AR compared to ten with the paper manual. The same test was repeated with twelve participants who were not used to working with computers. In this group, it took an average of ten minutes with AR compared to eleven minutes using a paper manual. The standard deviation with AR was one and a half minute and two and a half minutes with a paper manual. By using AR, the number of mistakes decreased to one third compared to the paper manual. The study concluded that the lower the skill level, the greater the benefits of using AR solutions [14]. This conclusion was interesting to us. Since it basically conclude the same as our results showed, that the AR application is better compared to the paper-based manual. It is valuable to point out though that this study was different, where the participants used a hand held device instead of a head mounted one. Since the hand held device is harder to use than the head mounted device as previously mentioned, we do think that this will only empower the results to favor of the AR application

Yet another study, [4], which resulted the same way, that the AR application was the best as an instruction aid by measur- ing fastest assembly time and the amount of mistakes made by the participants. In this study the task was to assem- ble a motherboard using four types of instruction medias: computer-aided, paper-based manual, opaque augmented re- ality display, and see-through augmented reality display [4]. The difference in our study is that we focus on a IoT appli- ance and the fact that a non technical person should be able to follow the instructions and succeed with the maintenance task. Also in this study the AR applications was on a hand held device.

PROTOTYPE DEVELOPMENT

Prerequisites
In this section the prerequisites for realizing the prototype is listed.

Equipment
The main two devices used are the Microsoft HoloLens and the selected smart office appliance; the coffee machine illus- trated in table 1. The technical manual which was provided by Selecta was used to choose a suitable repair task. The task was carefully chosen based on the amount of steps necessary, the difficulty level and complexity of the process in the task. Then in turn the instructions for that task were used as a basis for developing the repair steps in the prototype.

Development tools

The chosen development tools are Unity3D to build the visual parts of the prototype, Visual studio to code the necessary functionality for the prototype and Vuforia to handle the an- choring of the 3D models to the real world in the augmented reality layer illustrated in table 2. Vuforia recognizes unique patterns in the marker so that it can know where to anchor the AR assets. The HoloLens emulator [8] was used to debug the application without uploading the project to the HoloLens on each iteration, this saved us a lot of time and resources during the development process.

Space
Since we are supplied with universal keys to the available coffee machines at Malmö University from Selecta. We need to lend the available coffee machines when they are not in use, which is located in the break rooms and we have been granted access temporarily to perform our tests.

Requirements of the Prototype
Use Case: Augmented reality maintenance guiding
Primary Actor: Non-technical repairer, he enjoys the coffee provided by the coffee machine. The non-technical repairer has limited experience in maintaining a coffee machine and therefore needs extra clear instructions. The instructions to him are given via an AR based application running on the HoloLens.

Goal in Context: The non-technical repairer’s goal is to re- pair the coffee machine using the Augmented Reality main- tenance guiding application so that he can get his coffee.

Preconditions: The non-technical repairer has been informed of an error in the coffee machine.

Postconditions: -

Basic flow:

1. The AR maintenance guiding application is started once the repairer puts the HoloLens on.
2. The AR maintenance guiding application identifies a Vu- foria marker which allows rendering of the maintenance steps in form of AR assets.
3. The AR maintenance guiding application guides the non- technical repairer to repair the coffee machine step by step.
4. The repairer succeeds with the repair and gets his coffee.

Alternate flow: -

The repair task
The chosen repair task aims to replace the screw in the pow- der container. The repair task is taken from the Selecta tech- nical manual and involves in total eight steps, four steps from starting off to the unscrewing the screw part and an additional four steps to put everything back in place. Like illustrated in figure 2 the steps are: 1. Pull down the white cover while also pulling down the green lever. 2. Pull out the container. 3. Turn and remove the lock ring. 4. Remove the screw by turning. 5. Insert the new screw by turning. 6. Turn and lock the ring. 7. Insert container. 8. Pull up the white cover.

Design
This section aims to describe the process for producing the AR maintenance guidance application. The development of the application was done in multiple iterations, where in the first iteration a low-fidelity visual prototype modeling the UI with plexiglass was developed and in the second iteration, the first full-scale AR maintenance guidance application version was developed by transferring the UI components in the low- fidelity prototype. Lastly in the third iteration the final ver- sion of the prototype were developed by adding the provided feedback from the previous iterations, to improve on the application.

The low-fidelity prototype
In the first iteration a prototype was developed utilizing plex- iglass for the purpose of modeling the user interface. This iteration aims to roughly sketch up the UI of the AR appli- cation at the same time as we get fast feedback about what ideas are good and bad before implementing them into the full-scale application. This was done by translating (porting) each step from the repair task to replace the screw in the pow- der container from the Selecta technical manual. And then by drawing the instruction steps on the plexiglass and document each step with photos, see an example of a step in illustration 2. As mentioned the maintenance instructions were ported from the paper-based technical manual provided by Selecta. In the paper-based manual there are images as well as text to guide the repairer, we combined both and reworked them to fit as AR assets. Since this task of porting from paper to AR was done by us, the authors without any guidelines, we identify threat to internal validity. We are biased and we do not have a lot of experience in maintenance related areas or in writing manuals. This could affect the end result of this paper, and therefore when developing this project further addressing this aspect is highly prioritized.

The AR maintenance guidance application
In the second and third iterations we developed the full-scale application and the AR assets, it was mainly done in Unity 3D. For code see [5] and for a video demo see [3]. The logical code components are written in Visual Studio Code in C#, since we are targeting a Microsoft product; the HoloLens is shown in table 2.

The second iteration aimed to build the full-scale applica- tion based on the low-fidelity prototype to see how it looked like in real AR. One thing that we learned instantly was that the thickness of the arrows really matters, in AR they faded into the background without proper filling. Other things we learned from letting a fellow researcher try the application and tell us what they thought about it. All the gathered feed- back were then transfered into the third iteration where we improved on all the flaws in the full-scale application.

How the application works and its components
The application starts the repair process of the coffee machine once the camera of the HoloLens recognizes a marker in the frame. It will then align the AR assets in front of the user in the predefined positions illustrated in figure 3. In order to traverse through the maintenance steps a voice command is provided to the user.

EVALUATION
The evaluation of the tests consisted of observations of in total fourteen participants carrying out the task of repairing a coffee machine. Seven participants using our AR maintenance guidance application and seven participants using the corresponding manual in paper-based format. Participants were chosen based on two conditions, firstly that their occupation is some type of office worker and secondly that they had no technical background in maintenance. The gender of the participants was completely random, listed in the result table 3. Also the age was completely random and varied a lot in be- tween 22–50 years old. The objective of the observations was firstly to measure the repair success rate by looking at the amount of errors made by the participants (wrong action performed). Secondly to measure the completion time of the repairing whole process. This way the results are aimed to answer the research question directly. We also conducted a short follow up questionnaire of the purpose of getting a deepened understanding of what the participants opinions were about their experience of the tests. After each test we also con- ducted a qualitative study in form of a questionnaire for the purpose of getting a deepened understanding of what the participants opinions were about their experience of the tests.

Study design
The tests as mentioned above was carried out by us the authors, observing participants while using the AR based manual versus the paper based manuals to repair a coffee machine. The repairing task was conducted during daytime on a stationary, in use, coffee machine at Malmö University. The task the participants performed as mentioned in section was to replace a screw in one of the coffee machines powder containers illustrated in the center to the left of figure 2. The participants were also given a brief introduction on how to use the HoloLens and our application then a short description of the task they were about to perform. The description in the case was: Put on the HoloLens, start the AR maintenance guidance application, follow the displayed steps in order to perform the repair task using AR guidance. Then lastly a short description of the task. We also conducted a short follow up questionnaire, the questions are attached as an appendix.

Results & discussion
The results from the observations are presented in table 3, with four columns and fourteen rows (one for each partici- pant). The columns are Method, Time, Errors and Error oc- currences. The Method column presents what method was used, the Time column displays in seconds the time it took for the participant to finish all the steps in the repair task. The error column shows the amount of errors the participants made and the last column, Error occurrence shows in what step the participants failed and did an error before succeeding with the step and moved to the next.

The results from the questionnaires summarized are that the AR experience with the HoloLens was impressive and they had never experienced anything like this before. The more valuable feedback involved suggestions on how to improve the UI and interaction in the AR application, for instance in- stead of hands showing where to interact with the machine, marking the object in question in a color would be easier. Also by using 3D models (as Vuforia markers) of the ob- ject that the user is going to interact with, we eliminate the need for picture markers and could potentially add additional steps for example if the user makes a wrong step he could be guided back. Above all, the majorities of the participants re- ported problems with the voice command to traverse through the steps, this could be solved by adding a AR asset button instead.

CONCLUSION
In this section, we aim to answer the research question with the help of the results from the evaluation process.

Research question 1: How can we prove that repairing a cof- fee machine is faster and done with less mistakes by a non technical person with the aid of Augmented Reality rather than a traditional paper-based manual?

Our prototype proved to be a application that non-technical office people found practical and useful to use to repair a mal- functioning coffee machine and also the participants made less error and completed the repair task faster with the AR maintenance guidance application, the results are listed in ta- ble 3. Therefor AR is better than the paper-based manual and the research question is answered. The results were how- ever quite close and that could be because people are used to following the traditional paper-based manual format as we expected. Also with taking the questionnaire results into con- sideration there is no doubt that we need to further develop the interaction and UI of the AR application for it to be use- ful in a real life scenario.

Future work
There is future work to be done in this project, as mentioned in section one aspect to address is to evaluate and possibly rework the translation of the paper-based manuals to AR as- sets to improve on the instructions in the AR application. As illustrated in table 3 the participants of the tests with the tra- ditional paper-based manual made the most error on step A and C.1 which might indicate that there could be some room for improvement in that manual. Also the design of the AR assets as well as user experience design of the application, was developed by us the authors with limited experienced in this area. We think and also based on the results from the questionnaires, that this is one of the most important parts to develop further.

A potential compliment to the Vuforia marker is the HoloLens sensor data from mapping the physical environ- ment, which we decided to turn off during our development. This decision was made because we want the positioning of the AR assets to be relative to the marker. and we were not sure if had access to the same room with a coffee machine for each test. In our maintenance case one of the steps include removing a part of the machine, and repairing it on a table in potentially in a new room. A new room is not mapped by the HoloLens, and the anchoring of the 3D objects would fail. Vuforia also has support for an actual 3D object of the coffee machine instead of using a simple (image of a unique pattern) marker. This approach was not feasible for us because we do not have access to any 3D models of the parts in the coffee machine.

EXTERNAL SUPERVISOR
Our external supervisor is Romina Spalazzese.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to take the opportunity to thank our supervi- sors Shahram Jalaliniya and Thomas Pederson for all the ad- vices and guidance throughout the process of writing this pa- per. Also our external supervisor Romina Spalazzese for her advice and guidance as well. And Agneta Larsson at Selecta for providing us with a universal key to the coffee machines at Malmo ̈ University and maintenance technical manuals to conduct our research on.

REFERENCES

1. Aromaa, S., Aaltonen, I., Kaasinen, E., Elo, J., and Parkkinen, I. Use of wearable and augmented reality technologies in industrial maintenance work. In Proceedings of the 20th International Academic Mindtrek Conference, ACM (2016), 235–242.
2. Atzori, L., Iera, A., and Morabito, G. The internet of things: A survey. Computer networks 54, 15 (2010), 2787–2805.
3. Augmented Reality HoloLens maintenance guidance application. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=qQ59Wfuj6wI&t. Online; accessed 25 April 2017.
4. Baird, K. M., and Barfield, W. Evaluating the effectiveness of augmented reality displays for a manual assembly task. Virtual Reality 4, 4 (1999), 250–259.
5. Code Augmented Reality HoloLens maintenance guidance application.
   https://github.com/warriv93/Augmented-Reality-maintenance-guidance-HoloLens-application Online; accessed 25 April 2017.
6. Gubbi, J., Buyya, R., Marusic, S., and Palaniswami, M. Internet of things (iot): A vision, architectural elements, and future directions. Future generation computer systems 29, 7 (2013), 1645–1660.
7. Henrysson, A., and Ollila, M. Umar: Ubiquitous mobile augmented reality. In Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on Mobile and ubiquitous multimedia, ACM (2004), 41–45.
8. Hololens emulator website. https://developer.microsoft.com/ sv-se/windows/holographic/using_the_ hololens_emulator. Online; accessed 28 March 2017.
9. Lukowicz, P., Timm-Giel, A., Lawo, M., and Herzog, O. Wearit@ work: Toward real-world industrial wearable computing. IEEE Pervasive Computing 6, 4 (2007).
10. Malik, S., McDonald, C., and Roth, G. Hand tracking for interactive pattern-based augmented reality. In Proceedings of the 1st International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality, IEEE Computer Society (2002), 117.
11. Oculus Connect 3 Opening Keynote: Michael Abrash. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtyE5qOB4gw. Online; accessed 18 April 2017.
12. Microsoft HoloLens enables thyssenkrupp to transform the global elevator industry. http://tinyurl.com/ltlbvqk. Online; accessed 7 February 2017.
13. Milgram P and Kishino, F. A taxonomy of mixed reality visual displays. IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information and Systems 77, 12 (1994), 1321–1329.
14. Sanna, A., Manuri, F., Lamberti, F., Paravati, G., and Pezzolla, P. Using handheld devices to sup port augmented reality-based maintenance and assembly tasks. In Consumer Electronics (ICCE), 2015 IEEE International Conference on, IEEE (2015), 178–179.
15. Segawa, Y., Ohnishi, M., and Ibaraki, T. Optimal minimal-repair and replacement problem with age dependent cost structure. Computers & Mathematics with Applications 24, 1–2 (1992), 91–101.
16. Taylor, A. G. Develop microsoft hololens apps now.
17. Zhou, F., Duh, H. B.-L., and Billinghurst, M. Trends in augmented reality tracking, interaction and display: A review of ten years of ismar. In Proceedings of the 7th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality, IEEE Computer Society (2008), 193–202.

Outline

We will start with background biology facts about the body. Then move on to a list of important bullet points to adopt in your life to ensure quality sleep and to turn into a super human. Followed by my personal tips and tricks to getting out of bed and get to your peak state as quickly as possible.

Human growth hormones & the Biological clock

While you sleep the body produces human growth hormones which promotes a healthy metabolism, enhances your physical performance, and may even help you live longer [1].

The best way to increase the production of human growth hormones is by following good sleep hygiene and getting high-quality sleep on a regular basis. High-quality sleep for most adults means uninterrupted sleep for 7 to 9 hours each night. It also means keeping to the same sleep pattern as much as possible, a sleeping routine if you so will, basically falling a sleep and waking up about the same time regularly [1,2].

As illustrated above in the Human biological clock, by going to bed around 9–10 pm you get a peak in melatonin levels in your body, which will basically give you a natural drowsy and sleepy feeling. Simply by exploiting this phenomenon you will maximize the possibilities of falling a sleep fast and smoothly [1,2,3].

While adopting a consistent sleep schedule is great, you should also adopt regular exercise in your life. By raising your pulse past 75% of maximum hearth rate (usually around 130 bpm for a middle aged person) human growth hormones secretion will be promoted [4].

During the day regular pulses of human growth hormones are released and with lack of exercise they might be affected negatively. Also a side note is that exercise will in turn use a lot of your energy which will promote quality sleep. Regular exercises is indeed very good for your overall health and well being but as suggested also will help you to achieve a better quality of sleep.

Eradicate all consumption of food and caffeine after 6pm!

What you eat and drink during the day will have an effect on the quality of your sleep. By giving the digestive system at least 3 hours to process your dinner you will be sure this will not negatively affect your sleep. Also Caffeine is proven to stay in your body up to as long as 6 hours. Maybe it would be even better to have your last coffee of the day after lunch.

To improve further, the quality of the vegetables, meat, pasta etc you use in your daily cooking will make a positive impact on the quality of your sleep.

A good tip to get drowsy in the evening is to drink green tea. It is known to give a relaxing effect on the consumer. But also Green tea has been shown to improve blood flow and lower cholesterol [7].

Keep it dark as the night!

Don’t expose yourself to light sources during night! As soon as your eyes receive a high level of lux, basically when a light is turned on, or the sun comes up, or you turn on your phones screen to check that Facebook message, your body completely blocks the release of melatonin. This is due to a natural rhythm where the body strives to be alert during the day (when it is light). And rest during the night (when it is dark) [3].

Temperatures are important

Make sure you keep the Temperature between 18–22 degrees celsius for optimal sleep [5, 6]. The reason being when you initiate sleep your body starts decreasing its temperature and the previously suggested temperatures will help you faster fall a sleep instead of laying endless hours turning and twisting.

Block those noises out already!

Your mind can play dirty tricks on you if you don’t keep it in check. Use ambient sounds like a fan or simulated rain to your advantage to block out distracting notices. Otherwise maybe you convince your self those noises are actually the ring girl coming for you.

Last but not least, waking up

So if you have read the article properly you have probably figured out by now what I am suggeting here. Yes since your body gets a peak in melatonin levels around 9–10 pm. This is where you want to be in bed falling asleep. Then I argued that 7–9 hours of sleep is ideal, which means you should be waking up no later than 4–6 am. The earlier the better, you will get more time to your self ;).

To the point, here are some tips on how to get out of bed easier which has worked for me. I guess they might work for some and not for others.

Do NOT under any circumstances hit that snooze button!!

By getting out of bed directly instead of snoozing after that alarm sounds I found I feel less drowsy. An extra ingredient here to help you out (of bed hehe) is to put the alarm clock or phone on a table away from the bed so that you cant reach it and have to actually get out of bed to even turn it off. While you are already out of bed you can just as well begin your day, right?

The first thing I do every morning is to washing my face with cold water, this wakes me up quickly. Then I do a couple of minutes of yoga to stretch out any potential muscle tightness from the night, followed by some push ups. I get dressed and find my way to the kitchen to making my breakfast and preparing a cup of coffee, all while drinking about three glasses of water. Notice I have not yet even touched my phone besides for turning the alarm off. When I finally sit down to enjoy the breakfast, this is when I for the first time pick up my phone to scroll through new emails and watch some youtube videos or read an article. This decision is conscious as to not disturb my morning thoughts. This is the time of day where I process all the thoughts I had while falling asleep the night before. Also to allow your self this space of thinking you will find yourself after a couple of days less stressed and gathered. You will also be more certain about your goals and as a result faster to pursue them.

After a couple of hours I suggest you refill with a smoothie of some sort, suger is needed to keep your brain on high alert, and to fend of any potential drowsiness feelings. The natural suger found in fruits are very effective as well as provide you with other health benefits as a plus.

Omg this content was so good I want more like it!

If this is you right now, Check out our Instagram page where we post Hacks,Journals and Inspirational content all related to How you can become a successful Digital Nomad!!
https://www.instagram.com/thenomadrevolution/

Also if you are into veganfoodz check out our Instagram page with loads of fantastic images, recipes and tricks on how to turn to the Vegan side of life!
https://www.instagram.com/vegannomadz/

The responsible Author
Simon Irengård Gullstrand

Sources

1. https://www.tuck.com/sleep-hgh/

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm

3. https://www.secondopinionnewsletter.com/Health-Alert-Archive/View-Archive/12111/Does-your-melatonin-peak-at-the-wrong-time.htm

4. https://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/basics/measuring/heartrate.htm

5. https://sleep.org/articles/temperature-for-sleep/

6. https://www.menshealth.com/health/a19547551/best-sleeping-temperature/

7. https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/health-benefits-of-green-tea#1

If surfing is not really that interesting to you, then I will tell you WHY you still should come to Bali! I will tell you in the coming paragraphs what I personally love about Bali, how the culture is and my experience of the people. Followed by those Digital Nomadness tips and tricks, and tourist highlights you shouldn’t miss while visiting Bali. Lastly highly relevant and updated VISA information and recommendation (plus our experience) for you to prepare before your trip!

Okey lets go! I really like the extreme contrast between city and countryside and how quick it turns. You can go into many of the small cities/ villages around Bali and find basically all products and services I need with ease. There are multiple Cafes and restaurant with great food, coffee and (most of the time) excellent wifi for that grinding. Then I ride my scooter 10 minutes in any direction and I am in the middle of bursting nature again, with rice fields and bursting jungle on each side. And it is not at all like nature in Europe, it is in … extreme amounts, have a look at the illustration below and I think you will get an idea!

Who am I, why listen to me?
The short story is: I was raised in Sweden but for as long as I can remember my family traveled to new places around the world every year. I even have pictures where you can see me in a stroller next to the Big Ben in London. No memories from this trip though…

Anyway, this have allowed me a lot of perspective at an young age and I decided quite early that I wanted to work in another country than Sweden. A check list was created containing what I wanted from the country and city of choice and at the top; Warm weather, good internet connection and close to the sea. My first location I moved to was Malta after finishing my Master degree in Computer Science and from there researched further the location independent lifestyle and started living it with some newly found friends.

Our number one focus when traveling is on being effective with our work where ever we go. We are currently traveling around in all of Asias beauties! Sooo back to the point, do I want to go to Bali and even more important WHY should I go to Bali?

Culture

Lets start with the basics, what is the Religion?
The religion in Bali is a bit complicated, they follow a mix of Buddhistic Hinduism where they make multiple offerings every day in the form of a part of you breakfast, beautiful flowers, splashing a special oil on the alter, incenses are lit and even money is offered sometimes. The offerings are done to receive good luck and prosperity from their God in return. If you are a farmer you prey for a good harvest and if you are a owner of a restaurant you prey for a lot of customers to pop by.

These offerings are however not mandatory and the balinese people are not really fanatic about their religion in any way, but the majority of the people does do the offerings every day, especially the women. It was explained to us during multiple occasions that it is not only the offering that is the reason for the God to give you anything, but rather the action in it self. It becomes like a meditative habit you do every morning where you ground your self for the events to come during the day.

The Balinese religion also involve many cultural events which are a sort of offering to the God in form of effort, remember in Hinduism there is one God who takes many forms. Most of these events are basically get togethers where they sing and dance together. But there are also during the year several ceremonies they celebrate like we celebrate Halloween or Christmas.

We had the luck to be invited to a Balinese wedding a week ago! This wedding took place over several days and involved multiple ceremonies where the couple who where getting married had to perform acts with the aim to basically illustrate their love and engagement to each other. For example in one of these acts they had to carry fruits home from the market place (everything took place in the garden of their home) and “cook” for each other.

The reason the wedding takes place over several days is that they invite everyone they know, and those who they know can bring anyone they want as a plus one sort of thing. Also if you know someone who is going to a wedding here, you are welcome to join in on the fun! So the different days are something like, first day in this case was for only the closest family, friends and honorable guests (thats us, the last one! :) ). Second day and so on was for the whole village and people they know to come.

We might be wrong on some of these facts and how all of this works, but this is how it was explained to us and how we understood it at least.

The People are super polite and Friendly!
The majority of people we meet in Bali so far seem to be very happy and cheerful. Balinese are very talkative and even though their english is quite broken and they might not know all the fancy words, they try their best to talk to you. You will have a lot of people asking you something like, “Where you stay?”, “Where you from?” and then start talking about something related to this. We did meet the occasional shopkeeper who gives you that fake smile where you just know they just want your money.. You have to expect this from going to a touristy location like this.

I will tell you a funny story to give you an idea of how they are like: So this happened us a lot in traffic. Imagine you go past some slow driving dude, right, and when you turn your head quickly to check if they are ok, they give you the biggest smile you have ever seen in traffic! I have had truck drivers cutting in front of me, who are waving and smiling like we are best friends from their windows. Kidd you not! People shout out helpful things when you accidentally going the wrong way (one way streets etc), if you are waiting at a red light they would be like “Where you going?” with that broad smile. Haha I love it! I have never experienced this level of friendliness and politeness in traffic anywhere else in the world before.

After telling this story to my mom she laughed and told me another story which she in turn was told by a close friend of hers: Her friends, while also traveling in Bali obviously, wanted to go home after a exhausting day hiking in nature and they found this bus which seemed to be going in the right direction. After discussing with the driver for a while they concluded that the bus was in fact going in the right direction and they turned to find a seat in the bus. What they saw first chocked them a bit, all the Balinese people had moved to the far end of the bus, leaving the front and middle of the bus seats completely empty. Neither the less, hungry and determined to get home they didn’t really reflect on it and sat down. After having some food however they started to get eager to know what was going on and reached out the passenger sitting closest. A young girl explained that they all looked so sad and unhappy. “In Bali we think your mood is transferable”. So obviously they all moved to end of the bus to avoid being infected by sitting next to a negative prick, haha. Gotta love that culture shock right?

This story might also explains their behavior in traffic!

Weather and when to come to Bali??
Now when you are all pumped up to go here, you naturally wonder; “When is the best time to come?”
Best time to come to Canggu, Bali is from June to September — which of course also is the high season for tourists. In October it starts to get really hot (over 30 degrees celsius) and the rain season starts somewhere in December and it rains quite a bit until March/April. Worth noting as well is that it definitely rains more in places like Ubud than at the coastal areas since they are located in the middle of the island surrounded by mountains. But it is not like it is raining constantly, for us we experienced that it usually is sunny during the morning hours, the clouds starts to form around noon and the rain falls somewhere towards late afternoon.

There are advantages to being a digital nomads and here is an excellent one ready to be seized! During the rainy season it is a less touristy and less surfers in the water. This means more effective work and not as crowded in the waters for surfing for us!

As I am typing away at this post in a cafe in the middle of Canggu my self, the sun is shining brightly outside during rainy season (End of January).

Digital Nomadness

Gotta find that faaaast Internet speed
Almost all cafes and places to stay have wifi, but speeds vary a lot in our experience. It is easy to find a good place to work from though, just go into one of the larger villages. Basically the whole south west side of Bali, Canggu, Ubud or Denpasar. Most times in cafes it’s not the wifi but the noise from loud music or traffic that can be annoying when trying to focus on getting those tasks done. A pair of good headphones or by going to the fancy co-working spaces helped us a lot!

Co-working spaces

We recommend you to invest in a co-working membership at the co-working space DojoBali on Echo Beach road if you really need to focus and have troubles with outside noice. It has a cafe with coffee and lunch, a pool (wut) even sometimes events and member BBQs during the evenings. In short it is a excellent place to network and focus on work 100%.

In Ubud there are two very popular co-working space as well, Hubud and Outpost. Hubud was the first one to be built in Bali, as they so proudly announces on their website. We haven’t yet visited these our selfs but from what we have heard they are awesome to work from!

Investment opportunities
As I am curious about investing I like to look into different alternatives in the places I visit while traveling. Aside from the normal real estate investment (which could be very interesting here as well!) we found out about investing in a Resort area. Basically the concept is that you fund a condo for them to expand their resort with, they rent it out for you as part of their whole resort theme and then you claim a passive income from the whole shabang! I am sure you can work out as part of the deal that you can stay in their resort for free as well when ever you feel like it ;). Very nice indeed, you do need a pretty significant amount to start this off though, but if this is the kind of thing you are into it can be very beneficial.

Download the GO-JEK APP!
You know that struggle when you need to get somewhere but you haven’t had time to rent a vehicle or if you just need to send a package home. The Go-Jek application makes your life easier, thats what it does. Its an all-in-one app that offers transportation like taxi or renting a scooter, food delivery right to you doorstep, even order a masseuse or a yoga teacher to come to your vila for a private session!

Gotta live a little -> GO Surf those waves

After that last chapter is wrapped up lets talk about the fun stuff! The Canggu area got popular mainly because it basically has good waves year-round, although the dry season sees the best swells for surfing.

Batu Bolong is preferred for beginners and intermediate. You can rent boards at the shacks close to the parking area for 50k IDR for two hours or negotiate daily/weekly prices. Also there are many Warungs (basically simple restaurants with local food) along all the beach areas.

Echo Beach they say is for more advanced surfers and you can also watch “Surf TV” for sunset if you are into that sort of thing. Berawa Beach is mostly for intermediate and up.

Other than surfing there is lots of good yoga studios around town, with experienced local and foreign instructors, to teach you those moves!

TALKING ABOUT THOSE BITC..I mean..BEACHES
In many places around the coast lines of Bali, including Pandawa beach located in the south east part the sand is BLACK. Thanks to the host of volcanoes due to which black sands are created. Even if you aren’t really into the whole sand and beach thing this is something you got to see, you won’t be able to resist the black beauty beach especially during night time.

If Yoga is more you thing, Ubud is for you!
Ubud has grown tremendously during the past 5 years, what is wonderful about it though is that unlike Denpasar and Canggu the village chief of Ubud does feel like it is very important to preserve the cultural feeling in the village. He wants to keep the temples and not mix it up to much with modernity. But still he allows for many entrepreneurial opportunities both for the balinese people living close by and in the village and also for foreigners to do their thing. For example one day we had lunch at a local balinese Warung, ate dinner at a Korean restaurant and then did yoga with an Australian teacher.

Partyyyyy nightlife wooOp
The crazy club scene has not really arrived yet in Canggu. Gladly. If you want to party for realzzz, head to Seminyak or Kuta.

Sunday is your one big night out here where you basically bar crawl all night. Bar, after bar, after bar, can be quite fun if you like this kind of crazy nights!

As a Food lover I need to talk about them foodz!
The food in Bali is wonderful if you are into asian food. If you are a food lover as I am and want to try the local foodz you have to go to some of the vast amount of Warungs around Bali! You can find these basically ever where and get a 3 course dinner for around 5 USD! The dishes are towards the simple side but still very tasty. The vegan and vegetarian food scene is huge as well in Bali if that is your bidding. Illustrated below from left to right are rice with spring rolls, chicken and vegetables in sweet sour sauce, BBQ skewed pork, two tempura and tofu plates and lastly a vegetable soup. Delicious!

If you have that craving for Swedish meatballs or similar I don’t know why you are here in Bali. But you can go to the resorts in Denpasar and eat basically whatever you like.

The beloved Coffeeeeeee
Bali has a interesting new flavor you might not have tried before!! It is called Kopi Luwak Coffee or sometimes Civet Coffee. What is so special about it you may ask, well it is first of all one of the most expensive coffees in the world, Whuuut, yep!

Why is this? I will tell you why, the process is not like ordinary Zoegas coffee like we have in Sweden, these coffee cherries have been picked at the optimal time of maturity by Asian Palm Civets. The bean is then collected from the poop of the Civets after it has been passed through its digestive system, which makes it fermented. The beans are then cleaned and roasted in a special way to keep the uniquely developed flavors.

Ok you got my attention, where do I try this goddess of coffees? Don’t worry there are several suppliers all lining up to provide you with their “perfect blend” of the coffee. What is cool is that you can go to the actual plantations (most located in north of Bali in the mountains) and try the coffee there for the authentic spirit (and amazing views)!

Side note: This process takes place only on the Indonesian islands Bali, Java and Sumatra. Producing no more than 300 Kg per year distributed throughout the world. The more you know!

VISA

So as usual there are many ways you can do this and all depending on how long you want to stay. It is fairly effortless in Bali to get Visa extensions though. Will explain more soon. It is worth noting that this is from my experience and research as a Swedish Passport holder and that some of the following information might be different for you.

First option is the normal chabang where many nationalities can enter into the country without a visa and at no cost blabla, in Indonesia you get 30 Days for Free when arriving at one of the international airports. However, you only get 30 days, which you cannot extend and there is no other way than to leave the country and do a visa run if you want to stay longer.

☞ Click here to check if your country is on the list

RECOMMENDED: The Visa On Arrival stuff, right before you go through the Immigration checkpoint there are a few counters (can be hard to spot so do ask around if you can’t find them). Talk to the people at the counters and pay them the necessary fee, I think we payed 35 dollars. And now to the good part! This Visa can be extended for another 30 days to a total of 60 days by law.

However! By extending it through a “Visa agent” (we found one at the place we stayed at). It is nothing more fancy about it than that they know someone at the immigration office who the most probably bribe. This process will set you back about 600.000 IDR and you have to go to a immigration office only once (they tell you where) for fingerprints and photo, thats it! Really, no paperwork or anything, just in and out 10 minutes tops! I wouldn’t do it without an agent, as it saved us two extra immigration visits, plus all the paperwork, plus you still have to pay for the visa… After 60 days you have to leave the country though, or do you? Hmm… So yes by law you have to, but by talking to a “Visa agent” again, I am certain you can work out some sort of deal ;).

The hard way (but safe)
If you are serious about staying long term in Indonesia and want to avoid all the hustle on site, get a tourist visa at a consulate before coming to here. This will allow you 60 days of stay and it can be turned into a social visa at the immigration office which gives you an additional four months (sums up to six months total!). This does costs about 50–80 USD per month though.

It is really easy to stay in Bali for six months or longer as you can see. You just do another visa run if you want, get another social visa and come straight back in. This is what many expats who live here have done for years on end. Many people who want to stay here shorter finds it easier just to do one-day visa runs: fly to Singapore or KL in the morning and back to Bali the same evening. This is quite cheap as well, surprisingly.

Worth noting: If you do overstay your visa, you will be charged roughly 20 USD per day and have to pay to the government when leaving the country.

The value to for money is insane when renting villas and condos!
The livable areas surrounding Canggu is quite touristy, but it also means you can basically get what ever you prefer. From a small condo in the middle of where everything is happening to a large quiet villa overlooking the ocean. Airbnb and Booking.com are good platforms to have a look at.
We rented a villa with pool, two floors, maybe around 200 sq meter, located just north east of Canggu for only 60 USD per night! And the best thing is this villa had 3 bed rooms and we were 3 people to share the price between us! Imagine being 6 people! haha super cheap! We found this villa by browsing Airbnb a bit!

Save those Moneyz
☞ Click here to sign up at Airbnb and receive €30 off for your first booking, and another €15 once a trip is completed. Great way to save some money on that next trip of yours! ;)

Transport
For realz, it is really hard to find good transportation here… The taxis just denies you as they don’t want to drive you except if you are going quite far (gotta make the moneyz). And there is no public transport similar to Thailands Tuk tuks. The best way we found is to rent scooters! There are a lot of people renting them out all over the place, so easy to find. Cheap as well, we payed 40–50k IDR (Around 4 USD) per day. If you want to go a long distance with the protection of a car, I recommend asking your host if he/she can drive you or if they know someone who can. We found this to be a lot faster and cheaper alternative to Taxi. It is also possible to rent a car but we didn’t look into this since our hosts were very keen to drive us where ever we wanted. For some money of course ;)

Other
The average monthly income in Bali, Indonesia is around 300 euros.

If you have a University diploma in for example engineering the average salary is around 1800 euros.

Omg this was so good I want more content!
If this is you right now, Check out our Instagram page where we post Hacks, Journals and Inspirational content all related to How you can become a successful Digital Nomad!! https://www.instagram.com/thenomadrevolution/

Also if you are into veganfoodz check out our Instagram page with loads of fantastic images, recipes and tricks on how to turn to the Vegan side of life! https://www.instagram.com/vegannomadz/

☞ Click here to sign up at Airbnb and receive €30 off for your first booking, and another €15 once a trip is completed.

☞ Click here to sign up at Booking.com and receive €15 off for your first booking. Great way to save some money on that next trip of yours! ;)

The responsible Authors
Simon Irengård Gullstrand
Oliver Ahlberg

Sources:
https://www.liveyourheartout.co/canggu/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bali

https://www.bali.com/visa-on-arrival.html

https://www.salaryexpert.com/salary/job/software-architect/indonesia/bali

All the wonderful people we have meet and discussed with here in Bali.

The afternoon might provide you with a yoga class, visiting one of the nearby waterfalls and then top it off by having dinner and watching the sun go down over the sea while zipping away at a tasty coconut.

Reality check
Back to reality, last place we arrived to was Canggu Bali; Imagine being sunburned to death after only 2 hours walking by the beach and swimming in the sea. Getting food poisoned the first night, crashing with our moped because of a flat tire the second day. Then at the same time trying to work a Internet based job with 100 kbit/s connection in a 30 degree co-working space with a bunch of Hippies conversing loudly. Good fun.

With the risk of sounding boring and dull, there is no way a startup (and lets be real here, a startup is what the majority of “digital nomads” are running) can function by doing the “digital nomad dream” everyday…

It is an amazing dream though which can be achievable after working your ass off for a couple of years and building those passive income streams to live off while kicking back. Super nice, if this is something you want, do it!

Our approach to living as Digital Nomads

With this said we would like to share how we managed to work and grow our internet based job at the same time as we live a location independent lifestyle and experience the amazingness of Asia.

What we do exactly?
We are employed as full stack web developers in Malta, Europe. Instead of working from the office we decided to try to work remotely while traveling the world. We figured what we do is basically to write code into the computer, update Trello and coordinating with people through skype 99% of the time anyway (except for an occational face to face meeting with the marketing team or similar species).

Changing location takes a lot of time and effort…
We aim to stay in the same country for at minimum a month, preferably more. This allows us each day to have a few hours during the morning to do yoga or whatever we feel like, work at least 8 hours and still have time for breaks where we try all the delicious food in that country. Then during the weekends we go out to see the tourist attractions in our own pace. This allows us a stress free lifestyle while working effectively at the same time as we experience the culture of the country. Remember the benefit of working while traveling is that you have a income at the same time and can actually be as flexible as you like and the Visa laws of the country allows etc of course.

How do we decide on accommodation?

For booking accommodations we mainly use Airbnb and aim to stay at one place for at least two weeks. More about why further on. We look for private villas located 30 minutes from “cities” or villages, this allows us to live in the middle of nature where it is quiet. We always contact the owner of the accommodation beforehand to make sure there are good wifi as well, so that we can also work from home if needed.

Every time we move to a new location we do it during the weekends. Simply because it takes at least half a day of time to pack, taxi ride, unpack again, settle in and getting comfortable. Don’t get me wrong it is amazing to experience the new views and getting to know new people etc, that’s why we travel basically, we love it, but it doesn’t come for free.

TLDR; Stay in one country at least 1–2 months, and in the same accomodation at least for 2 weeks to experience the culture slowly instead of going everywhere as quickly as possible.

Western retardnesssss in Asia
Since we are western (arguably one of the worst types, Swedish) we have a somewhat weird view on service and what is considered annoying or helpful. We noticed straight away that things are done differently here than back home. We got quite annoyed at the staff at some restaurants and accommodations we stayed at simply because they were too keen to make it comfortable for us. Almost felt like they forced us to enjoy ourself.

One example for y’all; One of our recent host while being in Bali, Indonesia visited our private villa multiple times every day, she wanted to cleaning all the rooms thoroughly every day, change bed linen etc. At multiple occasions when we were home being sick, hungover or just lazy her presence were quite annoying. She couldn’t really coupe with the fact that we rather stayed in bed to rest and didn’t care for the room to be cleaned every single day. It did not really feel private at all since she was there almost all the time.

If your experiences are similar, don’t worry!
It will wear off after a while by just being in Asia. You simply forget your old, boring social rules and accept the fact that you are mainly in the city areas viewed as a walking dollar sign. Be prepared to answer a lot of waving, smiling and “Hellooooo’s”. Also the fact that EVERYONE on the countryside thinks that you, casually walking by, is the most interesting thing that happened the village this month is a pretty strange feeling.

To add to this experience one of us is into cycling and brought with him a sports bike with matching cloths and everything, really funny looks on peoples faces when overtaking motercyclists in supersonic speeds.

One of us used to be quite a low key guy back home, rarely getting any public attention. Once we visited a rural, local Balinese wedding. It basically felt like walking around without pants!

Very uncomfortable indeed… But after being the center of attention for a while and realizing that everyone are just genuinely curious of you, your culture and your beliefs. Keep in mind they are super friendly by hearth! They are only interested in you because you are rare! Once they get to know you, you become just like any other Asian.

TLDR; You will get use to the fact that asian culture are very different from the western one. It is very important and honorable for them that your stay in their country/house is awesome and not painful in any way.

Making those Moneyzz while Traveling

We try to blend in with the locals as much as possible during the weekdays by working from different cafes, restaurants and even resorts. All in pursuit of a mix of good wifi, working effectively, meeting new people and experience cultural authenticity. In Bali for example you will find a surprisingly high percentage of the noted places to have really good wifi connection even far out side of Ubud in the countryside. But if they don’t and we have a important meeting to attend to that day, we have the security of being able to go back to our accommodation.

Tip: Buying a prepaid simcard with a data plan, it is super cheap in Asia and will give you good coverage in the majority of places.

Co-working spaces

For the vast amount of available co-working spaces these days at popular digital nomad destination like for example Bali, Indonesia and Chiang Mai, Thailand. We have been to a few of these and in general they are well worth the price in terms of what you get in return. By providing a diversity of, lets say, sitting alternatives. Usually multiple types of chairs, pillows on the floor, couches, all with a matching table. We have even seen hammocks at some places which attract your hipster friend. They have stable high speed wifi, printer services, quiet rooms for skype calls/ meetings, whiteboards, of course a café with coffee and lunch alternatives. Sometimes they (Dojo Bali in Changgu for example) even have a pool to cool you down (AND TO IMPRESS YOUR FRIENDS BACK HOME ON INSTAGRAM!).

A lot of similar minded gather here which makes it great for networking and sharing war stories related to travel and doing business as well. Remember folks, having fun is the most important thing! The pros are hard to argue about, haha.

A Con!?
The biggest con we feel with working from these spaces though is that you walk into a bubble. Almost like it doesn’t matter where you are in the world, it becomes a bit like working from a cool office back in Europe in a way, only that you aren’t. Gets old quick, and like stated in the beginning, a lot of hippies and wantrepreneurs to dodge. Although these species can probably be found at any coffee joint around the world.

You just have to try for yourself and see what works and what doesn’t work.

TLDR; We like to mix with the locals and work from a diverse set of locations instead of sitting at the same co-working space for weeks. But if you need to networking at this phase of your business it can be hugely beneficial!

Omg this was so good I want more content!
If this is you right now, Check out our Instagram page where we post Hacks, Journals and Inspirational content all related to How you can become a successful Digital Nomad!! https://www.instagram.com/thenomadrevolution/

Also if you are into veganfoodz check out our Instagram page with loads of fantastic images, recipes and tricks on how to turn to the Vegan side of life! https://www.instagram.com/vegannomadz/

☞ Click here to sign up at Airbnb and receive €30 off for your first booking, and another €15 once a trip is completed.

☞ Click here to sign up at Booking.com and receive €15 off for your first booking. Great way to save some money on that next trip of yours! ;)

The responsible Authors
Simon Irengård Gullstrand
Oliver Ahlberg

Who am I, why listen to me?
The short story is: I was raised in Sweden but for as long as I can remember my family traveled to new places around the world every year. I even have pictures where you can see me in a stroller next to the Big Ben in London. No memories from this trip though…

Anyway, this have allowed me a lot of perspective at an young age and I decided quite early that I wanted to work in another country than Sweden. A check list was created containing what I wanted from the city of choice and at the top; Warm weather, good internet connection and close to the sea. Moved to Malta after finishing my Master degree in Computer Science and from there researched and started living the location independent lifestyle with some newly found friends.

Our number one focus when traveling is on being effective with our work where ever we go. Currently traveling around in all the beauties Asia has to offer! Sooo back to the point, is Chiang Mai a good location to work from?

Culture

Is there a interesting Religion in Thailand?
Asia is well known for its rich and vibrant culture, here in Chiang Mai you will be able to view massive amounts of it, by just walking around each and everyday.

The Thai people have figured out by now though that Chiang Mai has become a very popular destination for tourist and done some… improvements, lets call it. For example they have rebuilt the town wall in a way so that it looks ancient. Must say it looks pretty cool though, haha. The Cafe scene in some areas is like Europe, no kidding, 5 USD coffee… Buy hey free wifi ;)

Back to the point in question! Thai culture is valued very highly here in Chiang Mai, with a mixture of both rural and urban important events and traditions being celebrated regularly. The vast majority of people are Buddhist and are happy to tell you all about it.

People
Thailand is promoted as the land of smiles, and never more than in Chiang Mai. The people are friendly and helpful and honest! The locals here are not (unlike some other parts of Asia) always looking for a way to get something from the tourist. Locals will help you in times of need, and some of the sweetest natures in the world are possessed by the women here.

Digital Nomadness

Internet speedzzzz
Cafes and Co-working spaces are offering “very fast” internet speeds (as they so proudly market), and with a phone plan of around $10 a month you have access the the massive amount of Phone provider WiFi hotspots all around the city. In your accommodation if you are sharing the internet it can be very slow though (2–10 mbps down and .5–2 mbps up).

Coworking spaces and Networking
Gotta expand that business of yours? Chinag Mai is a fantastic place to network. There are now 5 or 6 major coworking spaces, several smaller ones and new places opening all the time. Every cafe offers free WiFi and has no problems with customers spending hours at a time sitting and working from within. It is good manners to make a purchase every hour or so, but you are seldom approached or requested to.

You can be assured that at almost every cafe in town (and there are 1000’s of them) your fellow Nomad will be there working away, and often eager to spend some time chatting and making new friends. You can check a great compilation which we like of the most popular coworking spaces here: https://chiangmaibuddy.com/best-coworking-spaces-in-chiang-mai/

Investment opportunities, are there any good ones?
A side from the general rules of investing you have to weigh in other points related to Thailand and the area in question. A while back for example there was a natural disaster, a tsunami, in the Phuket area wiping out almost everything… It is rebuild now though and business is prosperous again!

The most important thing to remember when looking for investment in Thailand is that you can not own anything as a foreigner. There are ways to get around this though, lets leave it at some are less legal than others. As usual you can buy anything from an entire business to real estate (take a look in the sources section for related links).

For example, I have a friend who bought an apartment in the Rayong area for 6000 USD a while back and it is starting to get really profitable as a renting condo now a days with the expanding tourist scene in that area.

Play

Gotta have some fun as well doing some Activities!

There is more to life than working, in Chiang Mai there’s tons of activities to fill your time. Paintball, Salsa, Rock climbing, Trekking, Sports, Get blessed by a Monk, attend a retreat, learn how to train Elephants, relax with a $5 massage. The choices are endless.

In particular Songkran (April 13–16) and Loy Kratong (Nov 25) are two events that draw overseas tourists and Thai’s from other regions of the country. These are two events that should be on everyone bucket list!

Thai food is extremely tasty
Here in Chiang Mai the food is at least 1/10th of the price you would pay back home (no kidding). Food stalls and markets can be found all over the city where they charge you $1 a meal. If you are into the vegan lifestyle, do not worry, Chiang Mai will provide with ease!

Well known Thai favorites like pad Thai and green curry are readily available, and Chiang Mai is famous for its local specialty Khao Soi. If you decide to attend a cooking school (Very recommended!) which costs only around $30 for a half to full day, you will discover the secret to Khao Soi! Fine I will tell you, it is a Thai red curry with Indian curry powder mixed in.

Coffee!!!!!
Being from Sweden myself I love coffee, if you do too, Chiang Mai is the place to visit. People in Chiang Mai say they have the best coffee in the world ;) Hmm, I have heard this before somewhere else..

Anyway, among the thousands of cafes most of them will have their own coffee farms nearby and provide coffee that is some of the highest quality in the world. It is 100% organic, grown under natural shade at high attitudes and hand picked, wet processed and dried in the sun, and packaged with single source beans. The coffee here is what is known as the top 1% by coffeetasters around the globe.

How & where do I stay in Chiang Mai??

VISA
Most nationalities get a 30-day visa exemption when they arrive by plane, but if you want to stay long-term it’s best to get a 60-day tourist visa available from many neighboring countries — the nearest is Vientiane in Laos. A double-entry 60-day tourist visa will allow you to stay for six months by getting a 30-day extension at the immigration office, and then doing a border run after three months to renew.

Accommodation
Chiang Mai city getting quite touristy, but it also means it is growing. Long term condo leasing (6–12 months) is easily found, shorter term (3 months) is more difficult but not impossible. Monthly/weekly accommodation is readily available in the low seasons, but during high seasons you should book ahead of time. Airbnb and Booking.com are good platforms to have a look at.

☞ Click here to sign up at Airbnb and receive €30 off for your first booking, and another €15 once a trip is completed.

Gotta get transported

You can jump on random Red Trucks and travel for just 20 baht, a Tuk Tuk will cost you between 60–100 for a trip around 5 kilometer (depending on the time of day, location and how well you negotiate). If you feel more adventurous you can rent a motorbike quite easily for around 3000 baht a month. If you are more interested in something like driving on long touristy journeys daily I would recommend renting your own car.

But really the best way to get around is by using Uber. It is quick, affordable and safe.

Amazing weather
From November to February the weather in Chiang Mai is neatheless to say, Amazing. Clear blue skies with 30°C temperatures and low humidity during the day and around 25°C at night. Around March the temperature starts to increase and get even hotter.

The rainy season starts around May and stretches occasionally even until October. The rain usually happens once or twice a day for around an hour. And when it rains it rains cats and dogs! You will get a warning around 30 minutes before the rain starts when dark clouds roll in and 10 minutes before the wind picks up quite a bit. If you are under a roof breeze and cooler temps are really refreshing and welcoming for a change.

Safety
Chiang Mai is rated as one of the safest cities in the world. Crime against foreigners is extremely rare, and apart from riding a motorcycle, you will never feel intimidated or afraid for your safety. You can freely and comfortably walk around either during the day or the small hours of the night and feel totally safe even if you are a single women alone.

Other
The average monthly total (all income streams together) income in Thailand is around 950 euros.

If you have a University diploma in for example engineering the average salary is around 2200 euros.

It is also worth mentioning that it is very common for the average person to have multiple income streams. Salary, other business, airbnb (
let a room), multiple properties and land.

Omg this was so good I want more content!
If this is you right now, Check out our Instagram page where we post Hacks, Journals and Inspirational content all related to How you can become a successful Digital Nomad!! https://www.instagram.com/thenomadrevolution/

Also if you are into veganfoodz check out our Instagram page with loads of fantastic images, recipes and tricks on how to turn to the Vegan side of life! https://www.instagram.com/vegannomadz/

☞ Click here to sign up at Airbnb and receive €30 off for your first booking, and another €15 once a trip is completed.

☞ Click here to sign up at Booking.com and receive €15 off for your first booking. Great way to save some money on that next trip of yours! ;)

The responsible Authors
Simon Irengård Gullstrand
Oliver Ahlberg

Sources:
https://nomadlist.com/chiang-mai-thailand

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chynes/2016/07/19/why-digital-nomads-entrepreneurs-keep-choosing-chiang-mai/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Mai

https://www.smergers.com/businesses/businesses-for-sale-and-investment-opportunities-in-chiang-mai/s0/c1682/t0/#

http://www.thaicustomhomes.com/investment-oppurtunities/

http://www.chiangraiestate.com/item/interesting-investment-opportunity-in-chiang-mai_1967.html

http://www.worldsalaries.org/thailand.shtml

http://www.salaryexplorer.com/salary-survey.php?loc=215&loctype=1&jobtype=1&job=22

https://www.payscale.com/research/TH/Job=Mechanical_Engineer/Salary/38dfd092/Mid-Career