The Blog of Harald

The house of the future: complete computer control.

The House of the Future: Complete Computer Control

As Don Sheppard punches his special code into the electronic keypad at the entryway, a monotone computer voice says, “Welcome-home-Don-come-rightin.’ The front door then glides open.

This is from a 1983 issue of Creative Computing. It amuses me that the “House of the Future” articles haven’t changed all that much since then. The technology has improved (Insteon by SmartLabs is pretty cool) but it’s still to expensive (and too geeky) for the average home buyer. Because retrofits are so hard (and labour intensive == expensive), this stuff is best installed by the homebuilders, but there’s no demand…