The idea of ​​"smart home" seizes the masses People in this house do not need to reach out to the switches or flip the key in the lock: they just need to press a few keys on the computer keyboard. I'm willing to bet that a few dozen completely ...

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Smart home idea takes over the masses People in this home don't need to reach out for switches or flip a key in a lock, they just need to press a few keys on a computer keyboard.

I'm willing to bet that a few dozen completely computerized Michigan families participating in the OnStar at Home super-experiment will go down in history as the very first residents of smart homes. But this fact fades against the background of their invaluable contribution to the simplification of the existence of Homo sapiens in general. Since the beginning of February, these people have moved into futuristic dwellings for four months, which we have read about more than once in science fiction novels. In these novels, a lazy person is freed from the need to make any movements.

All participants in the experiment have the OnStar at Home system and a dozen other devices from Hewlett-Packard, Invensys and Panasonic installed at home. The meaning of the experiment: to test the possibility of human existence in conditions where one does not need to break away from the computer to check if the locks in the house / garage / car are locked or to turn on one of the many household appliances (I'm not talking about lighting or air conditioning control). In addition, the “people of the future” from the experiment do not need to approach the door when someone rings it, look through the peephole (for some reason, the heroes of mafia films are remembered, who would have been saved by the OnStar at home technology), as well as worry about the state of the house in your absence. All these worries in the miracle house were taken over by technology.

The participants in the experiment, unlike ordinary unconnected people, do not need to walk around the house, reach out for switches or click the key in the lock: they just need to lazily press a few keys on the keyboard of a pocket or car computer or even a mobile phone. Panasonic provides the project with a video camera system, accessible from the participant's personal web page, which constantly broadcasts everything that happens in the digital home, as well as the control center for everything and everything. A mouse click on a virtual button replaces any movement and action in the real world. Needless to say, a constant Internet connection at home was a prerequisite for participating in the experiment.

The parallel system for voice control of the interior of the house is one of the most impressive parts of the project. One can imagine the surprise of a random wandering relative who finds the owners in an active dialogue with a coffee maker or a vacuum cleaner! The organizers of this sci-fi mayhem - the Internet Home Alliance, which includes a number of well-known companies - keep the location of the "cyberfamilies" a secret: this is not only the protection of the privacy of the experiment participants, but also concern for their safety. For online bullies, the temptation to "make some noise" in the very first Internet houses is extremely strong.

At the amateur level, the idea of ​​an autonomous digital home has already been tried more than once, although, of course, not at the level of “Pot, cook!”. A well-known Dutch project created by a completely digital family (www.sterlet.com). The family's house, hung with webcams, is open to anyone who wants to turn on or off (depending on the circumstances) the lights in any of the rooms. That is, you, being in your apartment in Novogireevo or Teply Stan, can use a computer and the Internet to light a chandelier in Holland - a wonderful demonstration of the possibilities of high technologies that cancel, if not time, then space. And on the main page of the same site, a list of numbers that have called these strange people lately is displayed. By the way, according to my observations, especially no one called them.

The idea of ​​a "smart home", densely saturated with computers, mini-computers, tracking sensors and digital video cameras, is gradually gaining popularity. Almost no one doubts the commercial benefits of such a project. Already today there are many thousands of people in the world who can afford to live in such a house. A person inevitably becomes the god of the digital space around him - in a few years, such omnipotence over the environment will become as familiar as dominance over the digital virtual space today. But, probably, it would not be superfluous to heed the warnings of science fiction writers - these perspicacious people have long been warning us about the meaninglessness of the existence of a technological civilization in the absence of a think tank - a person driven into a vicious circle by the perpetual motion of progress - laziness.