Deepinder Goyal is bored. After solving the existential crisis of how to get butter chicken to your door in twelve minutes, the Zomato boss has decided he’s the new gatekeeper of your soul. Or at least, your wrist.
This week, Goyal took to social media to tease a waitlist for something called the "Temple Device." He didn’t just call it a new gadget. He called it the "most important wearable ever made." It’s a bold claim for a man whose primary contribution to human history is an app that makes us feel guilty about not tipping delivery drivers.
We don't have the full spec sheet yet. Tech CEOs love the slow drip of information more than they love their own stock options. But the silhouette suggests a ring or a sleek wristband, likely finished in some high-polish alloy that looks great in a boardroom and even better in a promotional LinkedIn post. The name alone tells you everything you need to know about the target audience. It’s for the high-achieving, guilt-ridden professional who wants to optimize their spirituality the same way they optimize their sleep cycles and protein intake.
The waitlist is already live. Because of course it is. In the tech world, nothing says "disruptive innovation" like artificial scarcity. If you can’t make it good, make it hard to get.
But let’s talk about the friction. The rumored price tag is floating around the ₹29,000 mark. That’s a lot of money for a device that essentially promises to track your "inner peace." The trade-off is the real kicker, though. We’re talking about a company that already knows your cholesterol levels, your late-night regrets, and your exact GPS coordinates. Now, Goyal wants to track your devotion.
Does the Temple Device buzz when you’re being too materialistic? Does it send a push notification to your phone when you haven’t meditated long enough to justify your subscription? The irony is thick enough to clog an artery. A man who built an empire on the back of instant gratification and the gig economy is now selling us a shortcut to enlightenment.
It’s the ultimate pivot. When you’ve exhausted the "convenience" market, you move into the "meaning" market. We’ve seen this movie before. Bryan Johnson is spending millions to live forever; Elon Musk wants to put chips in our brains. Goyal just wants to put a "Temple" on your finger.
The cynicism here isn't about the hardware. Indian engineering is world-class, and I’m sure the haptics will be delightful. The cynicism is about the data. Imagine the cross-promotional possibilities. Your wearable detects a spike in stress during a morning ritual? Boom. A Zomato notification offering a "calming" chamomile tea at 15% off. Your device notes you’ve been sedentary in prayer for too long? Here’s a discount on a protein bowl.
It’s the gamification of the divine. We’ve already turned fitness into a series of closing rings and competitive leaderboards. Now, we’re doing it to faith. We’re being told that our spiritual well-being is just another metric to be tracked, analyzed, and eventually sold back to us in the form of a premium "Gold" membership.
Goyal’s "most important wearable" feels less like a breakthrough and more like the final frontier of the attention economy. It’s not enough to own our stomachs and our transit. They want the quiet moments, too. They want the time we spend looking inward, because that’s the only data point they haven't monetized yet.
The waitlist is growing. Thousands of people are signing up, eager to let a food delivery mogul tell them how to be better humans. We’re lining up to pay thirty thousand rupees for a digital monk that lives on our skin.
You have to wonder if the device will have a "Do Not Disturb" mode for when you’re actually talking to God, or if that’s a feature reserved for the Pro model.