I tend to be a bit of a geek when it comes to new technologies and normally can’t wait to get my hands on the newest, fastest gadget. However, I sometimes have a hard time distinguishing between the truly life-changing devices (my smartphone) and those that are short-term trendy and laced with buyer’s regret (my 256meg mp3 player). Case in point, Smarthomes.

Although I would love to set my house up with a voice-recognition control and be able to call home to put on the oven so that it’s ready for my pizza, I don’t see the point in spending thousands when I can already do this by calling my housemate.

The same would go for my underfloor heating. If I was out of the house and knew that I wasn’t going to be home that night, it would be great if I could call and turn the heating off. The problem is, a call from my mobile would probably cost more than the heating itself. Benefit gained…zilch.

I’m sure eventually someone will develop a system that I can’t live without, but until then, my housemate can live safe in the knowledge that I can’t phone in and turn off the hot water while he’s in the shower…yet.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 3rd, 2006 at 12:47 pm and is filed under Warmup. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.