South Korea's Home of the Future

An anonymous reader writes to mention a BBC article, looking at South Korea's vision of the home of the future. Their vision includes the use of many recent advances in interface technology, networking, and wireless communication. The difference? Unlike the high-tech demo homes we've discussed in the past, 100 of these units have already been built. Another 30,000 high-tech flats are in the planning stages, to be completed by 2008. From the article: "Here, everything is voice activated, and the fridge can provide you with recipes which use the ingredients inside, and let you know if your food is out of date. It relies on the food packaging containing radio tags, or RFID labels, which can be read by the fridge each time it passes through the door. In the bedroom your wardrobe mirror can tell you your schedule for the day, help you select your clothes — if all your clothes have washable radio tags compatible with the system — and keep you up to date with the weather and traffic."

my 'house of the future"

[LM741N]

One that doesn't require two people working 60 hours per week to purchase. One that has a yard wider than 10ft. Really, does anybody other the wealthy even care about a high tech house?

At what price?

[Josh Lindenmuth]

Unfortunately the article didn't give an estimate of the price for one of these hi-tech homes. Would the average (or even the techie) find the incremental cost worth it? I doubt it. We now have much of this technology available to us in the U.S., but few people choose to buy it. The only big difference is that the hi-tech "flats" are being sold as a package deal, instead of the buyer needing to request the upgrades.

How much would such a home be worth to you? Would you pay the $50-100K or so that the extra features would likely cost? Considering the only way that my fridge would know that my yogurt is spoiled is if I told the fridge I just bought yogurt, it doesn't seem like that big of a convenience (who wants to type in everything you buy into a console on the fridge?). Also, do you really need fashion advice from a hi-tech mirror? I don't trust my own fashion sense, so I'm certainly not going to trust a computer's. My wife suits me just perfectly in that capacity.

Not even remotely practical

[Micklewhite]

High technology is superficially attractive when you sort of think about it... I mean a fridge that tells me recipies! Wow! And my toaster keeps me up to date on the traffic conditions! WOOOW! And my mirror will help me pick out an outfit! WWOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW!!! But then when you REALLY think about it, it's not even useful. I don't know about anybody else but my daily gettin' goin' routine is pretty simple to begin with. The TV gives me the news, the fridge holds my food, and I choose an outfit based on what's actually clean at the monent. How in the hell is a computer going to streamline an already extremely basic routine? It seems to me it's just technology for the sake of technology. A voice activated oven is pretty useless. If you're gonna be hoisting a 30 pound turkey into an oven it doesn't seem too far fetched to activate it manually.

The only practicality I can see to this junk is for the disabled. Or rich toffs who need to brag to their friends about how their house nearly burned down because they watched a porno movie within earshot of their computerised grease fryer.

Re:The question is...

[Rude Turnip]

We're too busy working insane hours to even care about all that stuff. If I lived in Florida with warmer weather, a large cardboard box would be more than enough home for me to manage with my hours. Posting this from my office on a Saturday night, btw.

Re:as bad as dukenukem forever

[Ruff_ilb]

Are you guys kidding? Did you even get halfway through the summary?

Again:

"Unlike the high-tech demo homes we've discussed in the past, 100 of these units have already been built. Another 30,000 high-tech flats are in the planning stages, to be completed by 2008."

They are definitely implementing these advances - or at least proving that they CAN be implemented.

In terms of "where is your smart home..."

Well, with enough money, you can have one too. This is prove that the technology DOES exist and CAN be implemented. It will, however, cost you.

Re:I just hope I have a *home* sometime in my futu

[Anonymous Coward]

It's interesting that you bitch about how there's no job for an "overqualified", brilliant, talented person like yourself who is obviously smarter than the rest of the world, when just a couple months ago you posted about the "excellent propects" you had lined up in programming, and having a job in a call center. In a past post you also provided suggestions about "being successful in business" and how to act professionally. You told us how companies should interview people and evaluate employees and then complained about incompetent HR staff. This is rather ironic coming from a complacent bum on food stamps. My suggestion to you, my friend, is to log off Slashdot and go find yourself a damned job.

Re:as bad as dukenukem forever

[Zemran]

But after a while, when you have got used to it all...

You get a bad cold and feel like shit and the house refuses to co-operate with you... you are already feeling pissed and now even the house is ganging up on you...

Time to go postal

Re:as bad as dukenukem forever

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not? A standard protocol would be very useful in controlling these items from multiple locations (e.g. shutting off the living room lights from the bedroom), on timers. Once you've got that protocol in place, you're 99% of the way to getting the items to respond to events, anyway. You'll be able to program your house.

Why would the lights want to know what was in your fridge? To alert you when your last beer is removed from the fridge?

Why would your home theater system need to know what sweaters are in your closet? To remind you to do your laundry?

As this technology matures I have no doubt we'll see many common uses and some more idiosynchratic uses. TVs which display important appliance-generated messages. Lights which respond in different ways to different events. Appliances which autostart according to a series of conditions. Phones which decide whether to ring or send to voicemail based on time of day and whether any (or which) lights are on in the house. Devices which fail to operate if the children have not completed their chores. Lights, cabinets, and other devices which notify a shopping list application when bulbs or other goods are used up. "Panic buttons" which lock all the doors, turn on all the lights, or perform some other wanted task. Liquor cabinets which send a warning when liquor is removed. We're only limited by our imaginations here.