In this day and age everything seems to be going “smart”… my phone, my books, my camera, my car and so on. Now I’m looking for my home to go smart too.

I remember as a child listening to talk about the future of technology and how it would change our lives. So many day-to-day futuristic items have been realized in this time enabling us to live a busier lifestyle (isn't that awesome). I say it's about time we focus on the home and bring the one place we’re supposed to relax into the future!

Similar to the word “organic” there seems to be a loose definition of what “smart” really means. For the most part, the term in marketing materials seems to revolve around how that item efficiently uses a power source. For my purposes, I’m stepping it up and talking about household items actually being smarter and not just efficient.

Imagine a system that recognizes a pattern within your schedule, as you leave in the morning it shuts down your heaters or A/C only to turn back on an hour before you arrive home in the evening. Your PVR learns what your favorite shows are and records them when you are not watching or without having to set it yourself, stereo speakers turn on/off throughout your home while you walk from room to room, etc.

There have been some attempted ‘smart refrigerators’ without much luck or enough functionality. The idea of having your refrigerator create your grocery list, perhaps provide you with recipes based on what is inside and so on has been created and now just needs to be executed.

We are definitely on the verge with products getting closer and closer to becoming ‘smart’. Once we have the products that actually work then we can get our electricians on board with proper wiring and perhaps a software package that resides on our home computers allowing us to manage these new systems.

The bonus in all of this are all those new IT jobs!

Michael Connolly