HOUSE OF THE FUTURE: INTRODUCTION
Who among you hasn’t wondered at least once in their life what the home of the future will look like? How will our daily living habits and traditional ways of decorating change with the advent of technology and smart homes?
Enter the home by pointing at the door sensor, interact with robots and virtual assistants, speak voice commands to operate appliances. This is no longer science fiction, but possibilities within reach that will become the norm in a few years.
Thanks to Building Automation and the Internet of Things, already today our homes can become “smart” and offer unimaginable levels of comfort.
Smart features don’t just affect the conveniences introduced into our daily lives, they have hidden effects that are just as important. Technological innovation for the home of the future, in fact, has been driven primarily by the need to reduce energy consumption and improve the safety of the inhabitants. Back in the 1990s when the first systems were introduced to facilitate the monitoring and management of energy systems in buildings, people began to talk about Smart Building. As digital technologies have evolved, smart buildings have become truly interconnected entities equipped with systems, sensors, and the very “brains” for intelligent and automated management.
SMART INTERIOR
In the future, most of the gestures, which we are used to perform when we enter the house, will no longer be necessary. To open the door, for example, we will no longer use keys, but we will be faced with a smart lock that will be able to recognize our face. We won’t even have to adjust the heating, because the thermostats will automatically set themselves to the ideal temperature based on our preferences, the weather outside, and when we actually enter the house. The smartphone will be the one to alert them.
Luckily, we’ll be spared cleaning too, thanks to robots that will take care of it for us. If you want, you can also have one that prepares lunch and dinner, based on a menu that will be suggested directly from the refrigerator that will always monitor our pantry and the expiration date of food. And then in the bathroom you can place a mirror scale that controls weight and health, while a virtual assistant will solve the problem of the morning: what clothes to wear to face the day. Of course, the lights will also be self-adjusting, while the stereo and TV will try to offer us programs and music that suit our mood.
SUSTAINABILITY FIRST
Sustainability is an almost daily topic for the home of the future, with nearly twenty percent of AXA respondents hoping that our homes will be mostly made with sustainable materials in 10 years. This includes solar panels and flood-resistant technologies that will help our homes withstand downpours , floods and wind.
One in five believe that homes will have access to driverless cars within the next 10 years. That said, a quarter of people (24%) predict that the electric grid will struggle to keep up with demand in ten years.
Increasingly central will be the issue of spaces, not just those outdoors or with an overlook or panoramic view. But also to ensure the right and necessary quota of “green” and to be able to guarantee the right distances and the use of sanitizing devices. Everything always with an eye to sustainability, also for this reason the houses will be increasingly smart and hi tech.
It’s no secret that, in the home, the greatest concentration of bacteria can be found on the various doorknobs, switches, faucets and electrical outlets. Therefore, the challenge of the future will be to minimize direct contact with objects and devices, and tochless or touch systems are already available to operate, for example, lights or air conditioning systems in the home. There is even technology for programming via home automation with 3D holograms.
CONCLUSIONS
Robots, artificial intelligence, facial recognition, data analytics, and autonomy. The home of the future is becoming more and more a place where we are treated as guests, where everything is always ready for use and where the management aspects are taken care of by software while the housework is done by robots. Now only one thing remains to be understood: whether such a home represents a dream or whether it doesn’t risk turning into a nightmare.
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