People have begun to think about so-called smart homes a few decades ago. The first clever house was built in 1950, but more realistic contours were acquired forty years later thanks to Microsoft. Since the turn of the millennium, development has progressed rapidly in this area, and only in the Czech Republic today we have smart households around four per cent. The future, according to experts in smart homes, will mainly bring voice control and later also artificial intelligence or virtual reality.
From the house to the button on the first smart device
While current smart households operate on a unified system, almost ninety years ago, people had other ideas about how to operate a house or flat in the future. They believed that for a few decades homework would be done by more or less humanoid robots. At the World Expo in Chicago in 1933, a robot named Alpha was introduced as the prototype of such a machine. However, the development eventually went somewhat differently.
The first smart house in the true sense of the word appeared in the 1950s and was built by American doctor Emil Mathias. A house known as the Push Button Manor (literally the "Manor on the Button"), among other things, pressed the button to launch the blinds and close the windows. In his kitchen was a wind-driven coffee grinder, the electrical system checking whether all the doors were locked at night, and there was a cosmetic mirror that lit up every time the drawer was used at the dressing table. Seven years later, another clever house appeared, this time as an exposition in Disneyland. He offered visitors a view of most of the home made of plastic, including a hands-free phone or a smart sink that could be reduced or increased according to the user's height needs. In 1966, the invention of ECHO IV, which is considered the first smart device, was seen by light. ECHO IV was a huge system weighing around 360 kilograms, which was able to monitor the temperature in the house and through which some appliances could be switched on and off. But it never came to sale.
Today's clever households increase comfort and save energy
Efforts to automate our homes continued in the 1980s, when the first programmable thermostats arrived, as well as home computers, and in 1984 the concept of "smart house" was officially introduced. In 1999, he introduced his vision of a smart home to Microsoft as well. It's just that his idea is no different from what we know today in the field of smart households. The house should be controlled via a Pocket PC, including smart locks, lighting and heating controls, camera security systems, and even a barcode scanner to create a shopping list. It was the first time a company had really figured out where the future is going.
The real boom in automated and clever houses came after the start of the new millennium, when this concept became more and more popular. It is also on the rise today, for example, only in Europe the number of smart households has tripled between 2014 and 2017. In the Czech Republic, smart households currently have a 4% share, but they are particularly interested in younger generations, and up to five years could be up to fifteen percent. Smart home-smartphones or tablets can significantly increase their home comfort, and they are often energy-saving today. "An increasingly popular solution is to link heating systems with shading technology. Users can use the sunshine to warm up the room. Heating or cooling regulated in this way can bring significant financial savings to the user, "explains Lubomir Valenta from Lomax, which is involved in the production of garage doors and shading technology.
The future includes voice control, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality
Contemporary smart home technologies enable people to manage their home remotely via tablets or smartphones. They can set up heating in the rooms to return to a heated home, or to switch off the lights in the house at night without having to go around the rooms. Smart homework also increases security. "Automatic pulling and pulling shielding technology or remote control by means of a phone or tablet gives the impression of a home, even if the owner is on vacation for a long time. This can deter potential thieves, "adds Lubomir Valenta.
User comfort, however, is likely to go even further in the future. In the coming years, we can expect expansion in terms of other appliances that can be connected to a smart home system. The importance of the future will also take control of smart technologies by voice. This is already evident in smartphones today. In the future, the smart house system could recognize the user's emotional behavior in the future and automatically set the level of lighting, for example, or turn on relaxing music. Great hopes are also put into the development of artificial intelligence, which would allow applications of a clever household to learn according to the preferences of the inhabitants of the house, which would further automate them.
In the more distant future, an expert estimate around 2050, then virtual reality can rule smart homes. Instead of the current special glasses, people should use smart contact lenses. Virtual reality allows them to change the wall color or style of home decorations for the moment, according to each individual's preferences, so that each person can see the interior differently. The ladies will be able to rely on a new helper in the form of a smart mirror that will show them how they fit their chosen clothing, without even having to dress them at all. Experts also mention smart fabrics such as bedspreads and sofas, various bedspreads or duvets with the ability to change their color, patterns or texture.
LOMAX & Co. Ltd.
LOMAX's history dates back to 1992, when it started its activities in the field of garage and shading equipment. At present it is the largest Czech manufacturer of garage doors and a leading manufacturer of shutters and outdoor blinds. In 2017, the company successfully introduced its own production of aluminum entrance doors. Since its inception, its vision has been to be an important Czech company that is significantly different from its competitors not only with its products and services, but also the utmost care for its customers and employees. A prerequisite for fulfilling the vision is high professionalism, precision production on CNC machines using state-of-the-art technology and renowned suppliers of components meeting EU standards and legislation. LOMAX products excel with reliability, precision processing and superior warranties.
Source: tz Lesenský.cz