Every time we hear about “smart homes”, we start talking about the technology in the future. Our mind builds an image of The Jetsons, where artificial intelligence and hardware engineering have been brought to a point of wonder. But how realistic is that today?
I love watching smart home videos, but the animations and visual effects lose me. It seems that we are talking about futuristic technology that could be possible “someday”, but not in the next few years.
People have been living in smart homes for 20 years! I lived in a smart home for 20 years. This is what you should know. I lived in a smart home for 20 years. This is what you should know. MakeUseOf spoke to one of our regular readers and commenters, Ben Stutt, from Rock Hill, South Carolina, USA, about his experiences living in a smart home. Read More So what kind of smart home technology of tomorrow can be demonstrated today? Let's see the life that awaits us in the near future, not in 2050..
Let's start the day from when you get up. You have to go through the tedious task of making your bed. Well, unless you have the Ohea Automatico, a smart bed that makes itself.
As the video shows, it is very simple. Turn it on before you go to bed, and once you wake up, just do one step. Smart sensors and levers then take over to start making the bed. The process takes just under a minute.
What's going on under the hood is that a mechanical arm pulls the comforter toward the head of the bed, while another cord straightens the pillows. The cord lifts the pillows, the arm pulls the duvet over your head, and the pillows slide back.
And don't worry, the Automatico stops immediately if you apply pressure to the bed while doing so; Also, there is no way for it to activate if you are lying on it. Safety comes first.
Time to go potty smart for your morning rituals. Living Tomorrow, a research company in Brussels, has been experimenting with smart homes for 20 years. The smart bathroom they built is designed to speed up your morning routine while giving you lots of useful information.
As you can see in the smart home video, the smart mirror recognizes you and displays traffic information, weather reports, time and news. Meanwhile, the tile you're standing on acts as a scale, while a camera on the ceiling follows you.
With this data, the smart bathroom determines if you are the right weight for your height and provides you with nutritional information on what you should or should not eat today.
The idea is fantastic:it's about making bathroom time more productive and preparing for the day before you go to work.
You come back from work, you're tired, you want things to just fall into place now. The house you build should work for you, not the other way around, right? Now your living room has smart thermostats to adjust the temperature How to install and use the Nest thermostat to automate energy savings How to install and use the Nest thermostat to automate energy savings A Nest thermostat is the perfect way to start. In just one week of use, we cut our power consumption in half. Read more, smart lamps to set up lighting Light your home with smart lamps:here are your options Light your home with smart lamps:here are your options What exactly is a smart lamp and what is out there? Read more, and smart TVs on our walls What is a smart TV? 6 of the best on the market today What is a Smart TV? 6 of the best on the market today Most of the TVs you look at right now are smart TVs, but what is a smart TV and which ones are the best on the market right now? Read more . But that's not what I want to talk about here. The really smart living room goes to one that makes the elderly feel at ease.
See the simplicity of the technology in the video here. A remote control to search for keys and other objects. A telephone with large buttons for emergency calls. A carbon oxide sensor to detect harmful gases. Of course, you have a central smart remote to control your fan, lights, and other things. The phone is wired to dial an emergency contact if a sensor detects a fall or other damage.
The idea is to make a living room that is safe for people who cannot take care of themselves. Imagine how much safer you would feel if your elderly parents or young children were in a house like this when you weren't.
Yes, your living room doesn't need any more work from you, but you still need to cook. It would be a dream to have a personal chef, who is never late, cooks things the way you want, and even cleans up afterwards. Well, robot vacuums are cleaning up after us. What happens when robots can do all the jobs? What happens when robots can do all the jobs? Robots are getting smarter fast, what happens when they can do every job better and cheaper than humans? Read More The Moley Robotic Kitchen (MRK) is making the dream come true.
The “robot” is a complete unit that includes a pair of robotic arms, an oven, a food drawer, a utensil rack, a sink, and a touch screen. The entire unit works together to prepare, cook and wash. Healthy recipes are added to the MRK database, which you can then choose based on your stock and your wishes. These recipes are "taught" to MRK by chefs who wear motion-tracking gloves while preparing the dish, so the robot will perfectly mimic the same way of making the dish as a human would.
MRK frees you from doing anything, while still serving healthy, home-cooked food. It's up to $75,000, but manufacturers expect the price to drop in a few years. Remember, smart homes don't need to be expensive. How much does a smart home really cost? How much does a smart home really cost? A smart home could change your life, freeing up time in your day and regulating your routine so you don't have to remember what needs to be done. But how expensive is it, really? Read more . And if you're worried about a psychotic food processor throwing knives at you, don't worry, MRK just uses a food processor.
You've eaten, you've watched some Netflix, it's time for the night. As we know by now, not sleeping well at night is deadly Not sleeping is deadly:10 web services that can save your life Not sleeping is deadly:10 web services that can save your life Lack of sleep is a 21st century reality. But lack of sleep doesn't have to affect your health and productivity. Thanks to these web services, a good night's sleep is easily accessible. Read more . Luna is an elegant mattress cover that promises a peaceful rest..
The lid has smart sensors that keep an eye on you in bed. In this way, you can change the temperature of the mattress before sleeping, and yes, you can get different temperatures for different sides of the bed so that both you and your partner can sleep peacefully. It monitors your movement to know when you're ready to sleep and puts together your sleep patterns accordingly. This way, it knows when to wake you up or let you sleep a bit longer until you're out of your REM cycle.
Luna also talks to other devices and uses that data to help you sleep better. Her daily exercise, followed by her phone, determines her sleep recommendations. It will change the thermostat to optimum degrees. It will turn on the coffee machine when it detects that you are out of bed! It's simple:you can rest, Luna does the work, all for just $99. That's what smart living should be, right?
There is no single vision of what the futuristic smart home will look like. Everyone has their own idea. This quick and clever video of what a smart home looks like, with projectors that show recipes, hand-scan technology to unlock doors, and other gadgets to make our lives better.
Remember from Living Tomorrow, the researchers who made that smart bathroom? Well, they actually made a whole house. You can find a lot of videos of this page on YouTube, but the one above shows the best quick tour of all the features.
Finally, let's end on a tone of today's reality. OneButton co-founder Matt Emmi took The Verge through a walking tour of what a high-end smart home looks like right now, if you have the money. It's a fantastic insight into how physical elements and existing smart technology (like your phone) can come together, and their current flaws as well.
So has all this got you excited about smart home technology? I know Moley Robotic Kitchen and his robot cook made me go, “I want that right now!” Not that I have $75,000 to spare, of course, but if I did...
Well, let's focus on you. Which room in your home would you like to start with first and how would you make it smarter?
