There are adults today alive who have never heard a rotary telephone ring in their homes. There are those for whom the very idea of a telephone directory is a completely foreign concept and those who cannot imagine a world where a library card is a fact of their lives. This is how our lives and especially our home lives have changed beyond recognition in only a generation.
Today we live in a world of technology. It drives our daily lives most services that our grandparents would have found unfathomable. Just how our daily lives are touched with the technology that we today find it irreplaceable is something well worth exploring.
Let’s take a walk around our homes and see what the future of home technology is now delivering to us. Blogs.IU.Edu recently published an article about the surging electrification of home technology.
Our first stop must, of course, be the kitchen. This room is one of the most popular gathering places in any home. It is where guests are enticed by the smell of cooking and the warmth of companionship that should be part and parcel of each kitchen experience. A trip to a modern kitchen reveals technology that would not have been dreamed of only 50 years ago.
Take, for instance, food preparation. The humble slow cooker has been around for many years, but a generation ago it was not linked to our mobile devices. Today’s slow cooker provides us information on cooking times temperature settings and much. Much more all through the use of easy to understand and powerful app. While our food cooks, we are free to put our feet up and relax – while keeping an eye on our dishes from afar.
On that same kitchen counter where the new age cooker stands; are a variety of other kitchen devices that would have seemed familiar to home chefs a generation ago, but are in fact the products of a new age of innovation. An age that is powered by the Internet. Some juicers call up recipes at the tap of a screen and refrigerators that inform us when the milk is getting low. The kitchen has been transformed from that welcoming space into a space of technological innovation. However, it still draws a crowd during the preparations for that dinner party. No one has found a technological replacement for the smell of a fabulous meal.
Stepping away from the kitchen and entering the living areas of the house, one takes a seat in the living room. Standing in this room, one can find an upright cylindrical device which sits unassumingly on a table or sideboard. It might be named Alexa or Dot – but the intent of smart devices like this is clear. They make our everyday lives simpler and more efficient.
If you would like the temperature of your home regulated, your lights dimmed, your music tastes catered for or even your security taken-care of; these devices make it possible without even leaving your sofa. They do not require manual input, only the sound of your voice to allow for the delivery of services. Even that pizza you long for will be at your door thanks to the voice recognition systems and algorithms that make these desktop devices tick.
Traveling from the living room to the bedroom reveals just how pervasive this technology has become. There are models of bed for instance that will alter their configuration to suit those who wish to recline in comfort while watching a movie on a bedroom TV – and after that settle back into a configuration best suited for a relaxing night’s rest. That TV will now respond to voice commands as well. There is no need to go searching for that remote control. A human being is not that remote.
After that wonderful night’s rest we can awaken to the sunshine over our back garden and a lawn that is flourishing thanks to automated sprinkler systems that measure humidity and take account for the weather and deliver that lawn exactly the right amount of nourishment to ensure that it is the ideal platform for laughs and sheer enjoyment of a perfectly manicured piece of grass.
Our lives have changed beyond recognition due to just how much technology is available to us. It is a trend that shows no sign of slowing down and we should be thankful for the time that technology now allows us to enjoy something that is not powered by bits and bytes, family and friends.
Nina Smith 
Kim Marks