Imagine the convenience, in your very own home. Push a button, and coffee percolates. Air temperatures are comfortably constant—all year-round! The warmth of your fingertip closes a window, just like “elevators are summoned now in some of the newest office buildings—or by a mere whisper in the intercom phone”.
Welcome to the home of the future, 1950s-style. The writer swooning over such postwar fever dreams even envisioned “vertical cities and flying suburbs”.
We’re still waiting for those Jetsons-style flying suburbs, but in the age of the smart home, your “mere whisper” is the command that turns on lights, preheats the oven, plays music, and lowers the blinds as the sun rises.
“It’s almost like the future is now,” says Jim Mirando, Jr., president of Excel Remodeling (excelremodeling.com). “That’s how it’s evolving. It’s kind of intuitive. When I wake up and say good morning, my house will turn on the lights and tell me the news and start the shower.”
Convenience at your Command
Don’t let the techno-speak scare you. It’s not that hard to make your home do wondrous things. Mirando suggests breaking your needs into six categories: Music, media, lighting, climate control, security, and appliances and accessories.
Smart plugs enable many of these functions. Buy one that’s compatible with your system, plug it in, and use your system app to add your devices.
Other functions can be wired in and controlled through home automation hubs and almost indetectable smart speakers.
Go ahead and boost your home’s IQ with these options:
From Sinatra to Sheeran, and Coltrane to K-pop, a simple ask to your smart speaker makes your home come alive with the sound of music.
Security first
The doorbell becomes your eyes and ears to the outside. Talk to visitors through your app. Lock and unlock the door remotely for friends and pet-sitters. Install a motion sensor that triggers images of guests from the human or animal world. “Every morning, we see the deer that came and ate our flowers,” says Mirando.
Lights up
Set the mood by programming your smart plug to dim lamps and turn them on and off. Increasingly, light fixtures themselves are wi-fi enabled, to skip the plug. Switches are getting brains, too. Smart switches, either installed to replace traditional light switches or sticking to the wall without electrical connections, can control your smart lights and communicate with smart bulbs.
Appliances
“Alexa, make the lighting in my refrigerator red.” It’s a mystery, but some smart refrigerators can change interior lighting colors. Here are a few more useful functions from smart fridges: Automatically fill pitchers. Customize temperatures to keep food fresher. Get reminders when it’s time to change the filter. Order groceries when you’re running low. The internet of things, as the network of home appliances is known, can also fire up the Roomba when you’re at work, or call for medical help when your elderly parent has a fall. Smart kitchen faucets offer touchless safety, pouring two cups of water on command.
More to Come
How to get started? Get a smart speaker, and use smart plugs to communicate via voice and app with any lighting and appliances that aren’t smart home-enabled, suggests Mirando. Just make sure you have powerful wi-fi for those wireless functions. If you want a fully integrated system but lack the technological know-how, contact a smart home installer (Mirando’s Excel Remodeling uses Today’s Home & Leisure, thlproducts.com).
Coming soon: Open-source technology that makes every device work with your choice of smart home system. Start checking light bulbs and other devices for the Matter (formerly Project CHIP) logo of three arrows pointing inward, and it’s true—each will communicate with your system, whether it’s Google, Amazon, or Apple. Who knew?
“The goal is for everything to be more compatible,” says Mirando. “I think that’s the way things are going to go.”Which is great. But first, let’s talk about those flying suburbs.
Hatching the Smart Home
The smart home didn’t just burst full-grown into the 21st century. Behind every smart home are more than 100 years of whizbang technology pursuing the elusive goal of a fully controllable home.
Pre-World War II
The first decades of the 20th century see introduction of the electric washing machine, dryer, refrigerator, and dishwasher – not “smart” appliances, but revolutionary labor-savers for weary housewives.
1950s to 1980s
Percolators yield to Mr. Coffee automatic drip coffeemakers, but the “home of the future” looks a lot like the home of the past. Automation usually means TV remote controls and wireless garage door openers. A few homeowners shop at Radio Shack for their Pico Electronics X10, an integrated circuit device invented in 1975 (and still available today) to control lamps and appliances via the home’s electrical wires.
Late 1980s
Sure, The Clapper becomes an “as seen on TV” joke, but the idea worms its way into the national consciousness: Can I really tell my lamps what to do?
1990s
Michael Bolton is dreamy, and unwieldy wire bundles, controlled from a hub, snake through the homes of early adopters. Makers of the systems had predicted that homeowners would connect devices to the wires behind every wall. “They predicted wrong, and the system wasn’t really useful,” says Mirando.
2010
Automated home climate control arrives. The cute little Nest Learning Thermostat tracks time and temperature data and draws conclusions from the patterns.
2014 to today
Now we’re cooking. Google buys Nest Labs. The new Apple HomeKit controls lights, temperature, security, and other functions through the Apple Home app. Amazon realizes that its new Amazon Echo smart speaker can do more than play music. In 2016, the Google Home smart speaker arrives, and the voice-activated home leaps from sci-fi to reality.
