Will everybody soon have a smart house?

“Contemporary Anchorage house on the bluf” (CC BY 2.0) by  Wonderlane 

With technology moving forward at such a rapid rate it’s sometimes hard to keep track of the latest developments. There is little doubt that the boffins in charge of the technological revolutions englobing smartphones, wearable technology and virtual reality are bringing the human race into the future that many filmmakers had envisioned in the past. Films like Back to the Future II, and Woody Allen’s Sleeper predicted that there would one day be houses that took care of everyday chores for the homeowner. Could the smart-house idea soon become a reality?

The smartphone was revolutionary at the time of its inception, but has now become an everyday item that many couldn’t live without. The idea behind it is that it is so much more than a phone; it is a small personal computer which lets you play games, organise your meetings, navigate through GPS, take photos, and much more. This has led to other creations such as the smartwatch, which is a watch that can also perform functions above and beyond those expected of a normal watch. So what about a smart house – a house that is so much more than just bricks and mortar?

There are already some smart-house prototypes in development. A smart house is one in which the interior is interlinked. Wireless internet already makes it possible to link items such as the TV and stereo system with phones and tablets, and there are certain lights and electrical products that respond to voice activation. A homeowner can also access his burglar alarm from his smartphone, switching it on remotely if he forgot to set it before leaving. This type of high-tech alarms also allows you to see your property in real time from your smartphone while you are away from home.

These are all serious progressions in technology, which serve to make life easier and safer. But at the moment they all remain standalone aspects, whereas an ideal smart house would combine all these features (and more) with one easy-to-use command centre. Robots now exist that can do housework like vacuuming, and these would also be controlled by the CPU of the house.

“Roomba at rest” (CC BY 2.0) by  Dano 

But would you really want a fully functioning smart house? If there was a 100% guarantee that nothing could go wrong, then people who could afford something that would no doubt be exceptionally expensive would probably go for it. But then again, the films that have provided viewers with an idea of what the future may look like have also warned about what happens when things go wrong.

In iRobot, for example, a professor who seems to have committed suicide at the start of the film had been placed under house arrest by a robot that he had created. Now this is a rather extreme scenario which would be unlikely to happen in real life, but there are other security concerns, such as if something malfunctioned and homeowners were locked in and unable to leave their houses.

With the constant upgrades in home technology, it seems logical to expect that in the near future there will be an all-encompassing smart house that fulfils the homeowner’s every need and desire. But will a self-cleaning house that doubles up as a personal chef, security, and home entertainment system really work for most of us? We shall have to wait and see.