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Domain: lutron.com
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Stories · 1
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What's Next for Your High-Tech Home?
koreth asks: "You have the remote-controlled lighting. Your kitchen has speakers in the ceiling and a control panel to play your MP3s, your bedroom is wired for gigabit Ethernet, and you already record HDTV on your computer and watch it on a front-projection screen. You even have a robot to do your vacuuming. So now what? Is has all the nifty stuff been done already, or are there still some nifty homebrew projects out there? What's next on your list of high-tech home improvements? What have you had to cobble together yourself, because nobody sells it in a package yet? What gizmos and conveniences do you expect your home will have in a year or two?""A few years ago, there was a rush of innovation in household high-tech items for early adopter types. Hobbyists tinkered to get their PCs to act as DVD players, put their baby-cams on their private Web sites, and pieced together low-cost audio servers. But that rush seems to have largely evaporated, perhaps a victim of the .com bubble bursting. There are still lots of products coming out, but they're aimed squarely at late adopters who have yet to catch up with the latest stuff -- witness the huge number of PC media convergence products announced in the last six months, all of them with functionality that's been available in some form for years."