The home of the future
In the middle of Earls Court is an urban pad straight out of the future yet all of the technologies inside are available now.
Virgin media has put together the Home of the Future which is on display at the Ideal Home Show in London.
Urbanpad.co.uk went along to check it out and was very impressed.
While it may not look like anything more than a contemporary apartment the features of this home are what make it so high-tech.
Forget house keys, the front door on this home uses facial recognition to identify the homeowner before allowing entry.
When guests arrive it also scans their face and sends you audio and a picture wherever you are inside so you can let them in with the touch of a button or sound an alarm if the visitors are unwelcome.
Without granting access there is no way of entering this home as an elevator comes to pick you up and take you inside.
The kitchen of the home of the future is fairly recognisable except for the dome-shaped device on the bench.
Company Fagor has reinvented the microwave into this device called the Spoutnik
The idea behind the circular design is to allow the chef to have a 360 degree view of the food inside.
An interesting inclusion to the kitchen is a hob-zone free stove.
Place the pot anywhere and it will heat up and the cooktop saves 40 per cent more energy than traditional stove tops.
An interesting home inclusion is the smelly robot which is a device that when setup will let out a particular smell on call.
For example you may want to smell lavender when your emails arrive or bacon when your morning alarm goes off.
Everything in the home can be controlled by hand and body gestures.
Open doors with the wave of a hand, turn the volume up on your music by winding an imaginary knob and even flush your toilet with a hand movement.
The bath pod in the home of the future has a shower head that can be set to suit all kinds and buttons on the wall dispense shampoo and conditioner.
The hands-free toilet opens on approach and even vacuums itself for added sanitation.
The two inclusions which most grabbed our attention were the home’s audio spotlight and tagging system.
The audio spotlight allows music to be directed to a particular spot in the home so that no one else can hear it.
The technology was quite amazing as we sat in the audience and the Virgin spokesman swung the device from one-side of the room to another.
When the speaker was pointed directly at you the music seemed to be coming from just behind your ear like personal speakers but as soon as the speaker moved it was silent again.
This would be a worthwhile investment for noisy neighbours and parents with teenagers.
The tagging system was a way to catalogue items that you wanted to leave the house with.
Tag your keys, wallet, phone, and handbag and if you attempt to leave the house without them the home reminds you that you are forgetting something.
Finally, the demonstration finished with the perceptual pod bed by Alberto Frias.
The bed is very space-age but is setup as the ideal womb for sleep.
It can set particular lighting, temperature control, aromatherapy and even simulate the sunrise when it is time to wake up.
The home of the future is definitely worth a look at the home show and is a very inspiring microcosm of the abilities of technology today.
-
Tags:
- gadgets ,
- technology ,
- the ideal home show
