I remember long ago seeing a segment about Bill Gates’ house on MTV
Cribs. This was before my interest in consumer technologies had manifested from
my strident opinion on interior design and property. Back in those days, I
thought that the biggest driving force for mass market technology would be in
property, and I also believed Bill Gates’ house was a symbol of that future
innovation. It had all its essential functions linked to a universal controller
of sorts, and was so smart that it could change the temperature of a room by
analysing the occupying person’s body heat.
Today, it’s rather apparent that mass market consumer electronics are
focused on phones and mobile devices, as well as in the development of
applications; this is a market which continues to expand and dominate, and it’s
making corporations such as Apple, Samsung, and Google mighty rich. But today I
had a pang of nostalgia, and I began to wonder about when our homes and
properties would explode into a mass consumer market for electronics; not just
fancy robot hoovers and blenders, but fully integrated living systems as I’d
imagined them back over a decade ago.
Firstly, we’d have to take into consideration the application of our
mobile devices. Increasingly, mobile phones are becoming the universal
controllers for many aspects of our lives, such as the recent rise of near
field communication (NFC) which is turning our payments and finances away
from plastic and paper, and into invisible waves on our phones.
So far, modern universal controllers have not been a mass market runaway
success; they’re either far too convoluted or completely pointless altogether
for the purposes of a home. But applying this same use to our mobile devices
could make the whole process much easier, dividing tasks between different apps
that would individually control each appliance within our home. Forgetting to
turn the oven off could very well be a thing of the past.
The same contactless technology will also be utilized for our home
security with the development of mobile phone based lock
and key systems, in which home owners open their front doors using
wireless communication with a receiving-module from a smartphone app or online
page. The lock takes a few seconds to scan and confirm the user’s identity and
then grants them access. The user can also send invites via the app to family
and friends so they can use the same technology to gain access to the home.
Alongside this, a home owner can use their phone to monitor activity
within their home whilst they’re away; this will likely be done through a smart
surveillance app which links a user’s phone to cameras through-out a home, with
a live feed that can be checked with ease through an interlinking smartphone
app. These apps can also alert home owners that there is an intruder in their
home through monitoring kinetic activity.
In keeping with modern eco-friendly approaches to property, our homes
will also further utilize green technologies to keep our energy output to a
minimum. Appliances which use the most energy, such as washing machines and
tumble dryers will be developed to consume much less water and energy. This
also includes lighting, converting home owners from the standard
energy-consuming bulbs to LED
tape and strips which provide the same amount of lighting but consume much
less electricity.
From what we can gather about potential home technologies from mass
consumer electronics, the success of these future homes will ultimately be down
to how well these technologies are integrated with them. As such, I believe the
best way to bring these home technologies to mass market would be a tight
collaboration between consumer technology providers.
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