Future Homes

Future homes will be located in all locations on Earth plus beyond the planet’s atmosphere as well. First, let’s take a look at where some of the futuristic homes of today are located and then make some predictions on where we are headed.

Of course when one talks about future homes it is always tempting to either mention “The Jetsons” or your favorite SciFi movie or TV show. But, let’s ground this discussion in reality for a moment. And while we’re discussing grounding let’s talk about underground homes.

In the U. S. there are approximately 6,000 underground or earth sheltered homes to date. Many of these homes are equipped with advanced energy conservation and generation features such as solar panels, solar windows and smart home technology.

But, these underground homes are only the tip of the iceberg in regard to high tech dwellings as there are also techy homes at the North Pole and the Antarctic region as well. Of course these homes may be temporary, set up by scientists doing research, but they provide shelter nonetheless.

Less amazing are high tech homes on top of mountains, floating homes (boats, ships, houseboats) or houses built on stilts that avoid the wrath of flooding or storm surges. And all of these dwellings could be smart homes equipped with smart metering technology, smart appliances that communicate with the power company and each other plus ones you can interact directly with your PC or smart phone app.

This is all technology that is here now, today. So, let’s ratchet this discussion up a notch as to what future homes will look like near-term (5 – 10 years). Researchers have already discovered thin film solar technology and applied this to windows so that every window in your home or office can be a power generator.

In the near-term we can expect future homes to use similar technology over the entire house. Each future home will be its own power generation station. Many future homes will be tied into the grid so that they may even out power distribution to those homeowners and businesses that have not made the transition yet.

Home wind turbines, home use of geothermal energy and building homes further underground (expanded basements) will become more the norm in the coming years as energy independence and escaping addiction to foreign energy sources becomes a number one national priority.

Future homes of course will take advantage of future robots to do chores such as cleaning and organizing. Some of this technology is happening now. Japanese engineers have made great strides in recently years developing more realistic and functional robotics that can recognize human speech and respond to it or do specific tasks around the house. The “Lazy Brother-in-Law Robot” who sleeps on your couch and drinks your beer is now in its fourth generation. 🙂

Smart phone apps that interact with one’s home will increase exponentially over the next few years. Want to check the temperature of your refrigerator, turn on the oven, or start the laundry? Well, there’s an app for that.

And this is just the beginning because there will be apps created to interact with your future home robots to tell them to put food in the oven, clothes in the laundry, feed the cat and clean the bathroom. From your smart phone (or headphone as pictured) you’ll be able to check the supplies in your refrigerator or pantry and order more from the grocery store. Or you’ll use future home automation so that you don’t have to worry about this on a day by day basis as your pre-programmed smart home technology will take care of this for you and you can override it at will by using your phone application.

Future home entertainment systems will be out of this world. By combining future augmented reality, virtual reality and mediated reality movies and television will be more interactive than ever before. Imagine in your living room playing a future version of Wii golf or tennis with your virtual friends while watching breaking news or the latest 3-D movie.

You’ll be able to dial up the sensory stimulus or dial down the sensory overload on demand. In fact, you’ll just have to think about what you want to see and do in your future home entertainment center and it will become reality in a nanosecond.

Most future homes will have their own future home offices as well. The future workplace will become decentralized and flexible so that you can work flexible hours, interact with coworkers virtually, call meetings, collaborate and communicate all from your future home office.

For those with sleep problems future homes will address these issues using sensory deprivation chambers combined with future medical technology that will target your body using personalized designer medication which will ensure sound sleep every night.

Future home security will also be of the utmost importance. Cameras outside the home will integrate with systems inside using facial recognition software to determine friend from foe. This system will be automated so that police can be dispatched when a foe (including any old MoFo) is detected outside your future home.

Seniors will be able to navigate better in the future homes equipped with escalators and moving walkways. All future homes will be built with age appropriate child-proofing already in place that gives different levels of access based upon the age and maturity of each child.

Inappropriate content on the Internet or from the future home entertainment system will be screened automatically in a similar fashion as well. And, all of these systems may be overridden by the adult in charge at any time.

So, to recap, there will be many advantages of future homes. More power and flexibility at your fingertips will make your future home as busy, calm, organized, disorganized, exciting or relaxing as you want it to be at any moment in time.

Credits: Orhan-Cileli, Yoshikazu Tsuno