An hour away from returning home to Massachusetts after their last visit, Dan and Allison Wi-Fi’ed their home thermostat to raise the temperature. Welcome to the programmable home.
A few months ago I mocked LiftMaster’s ad that extols the ability of homeowners to open or close their garage doors from anywhere in the world. Welcome, bemusedly, to the programmable home.
For years, some refrigerators have been able to build virtual shopping lists based on what food is removed from the cold storage. Welcome to the programmable home.
Of course, these examples are hardly new. Indeed, almost 31 years ago, in the May 1983 issue of Chain Store Age, my staff (mostly, associate editor Jeff MacCallum) chronicled how existing or nascent technologies would transform the lifestyles of tomorrow (meaning, by now, but that's a story for another day).
We correctly forecast the boom in compact discs but failed to see the iPod/iPhone /iTunes making CDs all but obsolete. We predicted widespread Internet shopping, what we called “teleshopping,” for at the time the Internet was barely more than a scientific and military communications protocol. We predicted families would disdain albums in favor of viewing photos on their big screen televisions. We predicted robots would be common household members. We predicted electronic watches would convey information (okay, that turned out to be the smart phone, but recently Samsung has advanced a Galaxy Gear smart watch). We predicted technology would automate cars, making drivers all but non essential. Detroit is close to that reality. We made lots of other predictions that have come true.
We profiled Xanadu, outside Orlando, the first of several experimental homes built to showcase the interface of technology with daily living. The Orlando Xanadu attracted some 1,000 visitors a day. The homes no longer exist, however, victims of the relentless advance of technology that overtook their once-advanced concepts. Still, it is humbling to recall how my magazine anticipated many of the innovations we take for granted today.
During his next visit Dan said he would check to see if our programmable thermostat wiring could accept a Wi-Fi version (or else we’d have to have an electrician come in). I hope it does. I can’t want to enter the future.
