Intelligent homes are here. But you won't even recognise the walls of next-generation houses, reports Andrew Read
Scientists studying how families use an ordinary house crammed with today's most advanced gadgets predict that tomorrow's technology will transform your home. You'll have walls that turn into windows and will be able to change your decor at the flick of a switch.
This brave new world was described by scientists at the British Association's Festival of Science 2003 yesterday, at the University of Salford in England.
One company, Orange Innovation, has stocked an ordinary four- bedroom house with near-market products under test by leading companies. It has voice-activated taps, digital multimedia throughout, flatscreens in all rooms, automatically flushing toilets and electronic frames that display pictures of your choice. The coffee and washing machines are remotely controlled, and the lawnmower is a robot.
The families weren't keen on everything, says Stephen Hope of Orange Innovation. They didn't like the automatic light switches and they preferred to control the heaters with a wall box rather than with their remote controls. Nor did most families like a single remote control to guide the whole house - but other people might, he said: the elderly or infirm could prefer remote controls over switches or even voice activation.
Personalisation is the aim. Does Dad like the bath hotter than Mum? Tell the house, then just say: "Run the bath for Dad." Orange envisages a range of health benefits too. "The house can monitor you, rather than having to go to the hospital for a check-up," says Hope. The house has a range of exercise equipment that can check your health. In the future it could remind diabetics to take their medicine or include electronic images of friends and family, to remind people with Alzheimer's disease who they are.
Orange's intelligent home uses existing technology. But Prof Jim Feast of the University of Durham imagines that the next generation of houses will be completely different. The TV will be a picture on the wall, and we won't have curtains. Our walls, or those parts of them we chose, could be transparent, or go opaque, or maybe turn into a picture of Hawaii, depending on whether we want a window or cheering up on a gloomy day.
Lights as we know them will go, and we'll select the level and colour of illumination from our glowing walls.
All this becomes possible because of smaller and lighter organic electronics, he says. The move from silicon-based to plastic-based electronics has already started. Last year Philips began selling an electric shaver with a display based on the new technology.
Shopping itself could change. No more bar codes or checkouts - as you wheeled your trolley through a gate the contents could be scanned and the cost deducted from your bank account.
The possibilities "are only limited by one's imagination and finance," says Feast. "In principle all these things are possible already."
Andrew Read is a research scientist at the University of Edinburgh and a British Association for the Advancement of Science Media Fellow on placement at The Irish Times