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South Korea's Home of the Future
An anonymous reader writes to mention a BBC article, looking at South Korea's vision of the home of the future. Their vision includes the use of many recent advances in interface technology, networking, and wireless communication. The difference? Unlike the high-tech demo homes we've discussed in the past, 100 of these units have already been built. Another 30,000 high-tech flats are in the planning stages, to be completed by 2008. From the article: "Here, everything is voice activated, and the fridge can provide you with recipes which use the ingredients inside, and let you know if your food is out of date. It relies on the food packaging containing radio tags, or RFID labels, which can be read by the fridge each time it passes through the door. In the bedroom your wardrobe mirror can tell you your schedule for the day, help you select your clothes — if all your clothes have washable radio tags compatible with the system — and keep you up to date with the weather and traffic."
One that doesn't require two people working 60 hours per week to purchase. One that has a yard wider than 10ft. Really, does anybody other the wealthy even care about a high tech house?
Unfortunately the article didn't give an estimate of the price for one of these hi-tech homes. Would the average (or even the techie) find the incremental cost worth it? I doubt it. We now have much of this technology available to us in the U.S., but few people choose to buy it. The only big difference is that the hi-tech "flats" are being sold as a package deal, instead of the buyer needing to request the upgrades.
How much would such a home be worth to you? Would you pay the $50-100K or so that the extra features would likely cost? Considering the only way that my fridge would know that my yogurt is spoiled is if I told the fridge I just bought yogurt, it doesn't seem like that big of a convenience (who wants to type in everything you buy into a console on the fridge?). Also, do you really need fashion advice from a hi-tech mirror? I don't trust my own fashion sense, so I'm certainly not going to trust a computer's. My wife suits me just perfectly in that capacity.
Huh? Don't mind me, I'm just the new guy.
We're too busy working insane hours to even care about all that stuff. If I lived in Florida with warmer weather, a large cardboard box would be more than enough home for me to manage with my hours. Posting this from my office on a Saturday night, btw.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Are you guys kidding? Did you even get halfway through the summary?
Again:
"Unlike the high-tech demo homes we've discussed in the past, 100 of these units have already been built. Another 30,000 high-tech flats are in the planning stages, to be completed by 2008."
They are definitely implementing these advances - or at least proving that they CAN be implemented.
In terms of "where is your smart home..."
Well, with enough money, you can have one too. This is prove that the technology DOES exist and CAN be implemented. It will, however, cost you.
http://www.TheGamerNation.com/Forums
But after a while, when you have got used to it all...
You get a bad cold and feel like shit and the house refuses to co-operate with you... you are already feeling pissed and now even the house is ganging up on you...
Time to go postal
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.