Tech-News

Keeping Pace with Home Technology

home technology

Advanced technology has entered our homes long time ago and home technology became one of the most dynamic technology niches. Each year we are able to buy new and upgraded home appliance models that offer more connectivity and personalization.

Energy efficiency is another growing trend and now we have devices that follow our every move and advise us how to decrease our power costs and carbon footprint. In this article we will take a peek into the future of home tech and review some of the concept devices and appliances that are currently being developed by the most respected manufacturers.

Home Automation Tech

This has been a dynamic year for home automation development. Today’s homes are featuring several advanced automation devices which have the purpose of: decreasing energy consumption, making homes more secure, personalizing home space and making it more comfortable and enjoyable. Most modern automation systems rely on these smart devices:

  • Programmable thermostats – that drastically decrease air conditioning consumption. These devices can connect to homeowner’s smartphone and allow them to control their home temperature remotely.
  • Occupancy sensors – decrease lighting costs by turning it off, in the rooms that are not occupied.
  • Smart timers – enable home owners to program their lights before they go to vacation and turn them on at night in order to turn away burglars. Timers can also be used for programing air-conditioning and heating systems.

By mounting all these devices together manufacturers like Powerhouse Dynamics are creating smart energy management systems that can tell us whether we are going over our monthly power budget. These systems are already in use and they can track energy consumption, associated costs and your home’s carbon footprint. These systems will decrease your power costs, analyze home appliances’ work and suggest repairs and upgrades that will make them more energy efficient.

Home Theatres

Cinema came to American homes in the beginning of the fifties, with the introduction of Kodak 8 mm projector equipment, but until the late nineties home movie theatre experience was reserved for millionaires, rich actors and film directors. Today’s home theatre systems are affordable to people from all walks of life, which is why this niche perfectly reflects our society’s tech thrift.

So what can we expect from future home theatre systems? Experts behind Universal Home Theatre say that future home theatre systems will be controlled by our smartphones and tablets. We’ve been watching 3D movies for several decades now, and in the near future home theatres will also include a 3D sound. Dolby Labs and DTS, which are the two most prominent names in sound industry, had been trying to find the solution that will convert 2D in 3D sound for ages. Now they’ve finally released Dolby Atmos and DTS-X sound systems, which offer high-quality 3D sound made with only 2 pairs of speakers. Home theatres will also represent the basis of centralized home entertainment. Soon, we will have closed Ethernet networks in our homes that will stream our favorite Netflix program to almost any device.  

Robots

We are still far from freely operating humanoid robots that we’ve seen in The Jetsons or Futurama, but small automated robots already exist, and their popularity is steadily growing. You’ve probably seen small disk shaped robots that vacuum and clean floors. At this very moment top home robot manufacturers, like Neato Robotics are developing a one-arm, three finger robot that can operate home appliances and serve drinks. It can be controlled with an embedded touchscreen and it uses integrated sensor systems for executing people’s commands.

Smart Toilets

Advanced tech penetrates all areas of our homes and in recent years even our toilets have become smart and connected. In Japan the company named Toto produces smart toilets that can conduct urine analysis after people do their business and determine whether they have diabetes or some kind of urinal infection Toto’s spokesperson says that they are ‘Apple Computers of toilets’ and they’ve already started selling their products in the U.S. Together with urinal analysis, their toilets also come with numerous other features, including: hand-free opening, Bluetooth music streaming and touchscreen remote control.

Since the Internet of Things concept is already kicking in, home WLAN will shift towards creating additional private home networks that will enable devices to communicate with each other. Today, only our phones, tablets, desktops and home theatre computers can connect to the internet and exchange data, but in the near future this privilege will also be reserved for fridges, washing machines, complex tools, monitoring systems etc. The biggest change in more than a century of home tech development is happening at this very moment, and its purpose is to connect all of our home appliances and fully adjust their work with our personal needs.

Comment here

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.