<p>Grab the keys and get set to unpack your boxes. It’s time to move into the future. But before you cross the threshold and command your robo-butler to get the kettle on, take a moment to stand back and admire this feat of engineering.<br /><br /></p>.<p>First off, traditional clay bricks are out. Future houses are likely to be eco-friendly, eschewing CO²-heavy manufacturing processes. Your home might incorporate building blocks constructed from natural cement churned out by bacteria, or be fashioned from fungi — indeed several companies including MycoWorks and EvocativeDesign are exploring the potential of mushroom-based materials. <br /><br />Among the innovations that could take off are super-reflective tiles for those in scorching climes and, for the rest of us, biosolar roofs that combine habitat for pollinators with energy-generating panels. Self-cleaning finishes, already on the market, are in for an upgrade too. Building on the well-established grime-busting properties of titanium dioxide, researchers are developing paints to keep your exteriors glistening even when scratched, scuffed or grazed. <br /><br />The path to your front door, meanwhile, could be embedded with tiles like those by Pavegen that can turn your visitors’ footsteps into electrical power. Although with companies such as Google promising deliveries by drone, and Starship wheeling out dumpy-looking free-to-use delivery bots, the postman won’t be beating a path to your front door for much longer. <br /><br />Your garden is also likely to see a fusion of tradition and technology — devices such as Blossom already monitor weather reports to regulate the watering of your lawn, while robot lawn mowers will keep it neatly trimmed — but the burgeoning field of digital art could finally allow you to jettison the ugly water feature and augment your lawn with beautiful and changeable statues and soundscapes created in virtual spaces. <br /><br />The kitchen<br /><br />Sometimes it seems our appetite for tech knows no bounds. So perhaps it is small wonder that kitchen innovations are moving swiftly on from a lightbulb in the fridge and softly, softly closing drawers.<br /><br />One thing that’s certainly on the menu is a spare pair of hands to wield the pans — be that a fully robotic chef like Moley that can, by motion tracking, replicate your Jamie Oliver impression to a T or the fetching-and-carrying Care-O-Bot4 by Fraunhofer. Not only can the latter turn up with a colander but it can also do the laundry and, apparently, garnish your breakfast tray with a red, red rose. If you are so inclined.<br /><br />And it’s cheers all round as be-splattered recipe books and pastry-flecked screens get the boot in favour of hygienic upgrades. Among them is a nifty vertical recipe projector, suggested by Wan-Ru Cin for the James Dyson award and an even smarter system dreamed up by students at Lund and Eindhoven Universities that not only projects recipes onto the work surface but also uses a canny array of cameras to detect ingredients and offer culinary suggestions accordingly. <br /><br />Of course, the one appliance we are all hoping to see upgraded is that bastion of the 1960s, the Teasmade. And, behold, it shall be done. Budding technologists have devised a smart coffee machine dubbed the smarter.am (app controlled, of course), while innovation has been brewing on Kickstarter with offerings such as the Qi Theteamaker that adjusts temperature and steeping time to the leaves used. <br /><br />The bathroom<br /><br />Morning ablutions might seem a private affair, but that could all change as technology finds its way into the smallest room in the house. Among those vying to keep an eye on your vital statistics is Withings, whose “Smart Body Analyzer” makes your old nemesis — the bathroom scales — look positively friendly. Claiming to measure your weight, body fat, heart rate and BMI, it will not only terrorise your tiled floor, but take to your phone: an accompanying app tracks your activity and adjusts your calorie budget for the day to meet your health goals.<br /><br /> Even that most benign of bathroom essentials, the humble loo, is in for an upgrade. Smart toilets have already hit the stores, with American firm DXV anticipating what it somewhat alarmingly terms a “contemporary movement” through its heated seats, night lights and remote controls. But alternatives are already in the offing that can monitor your bodily extrusions better than an over-competitive parent. Japanese company Toto has unveiled its Flowsky toilet that keeps tabs on your rate of gush, while MIT SENSEeable City Lab is working on a loo that can not only recognise the be-throned, but analyse their excrement to shed light on the state of their health and microbiome.<br /><br />The mirror, mirror on the wall, might finally talk back too if AI holds true to its promises. A suite of tech companies are devising prototype smart mirrors to offer advice on everything from wardrobe choice to makeup, together with news and weather updates. <br /><br />The living room<br /><br />The living room is all about kicking back and enjoying yourself, so why not start your weekend wind-down with a cool glass of something festive, ferried to your side by your very own Robo-Carson?<br /><br />Android helpmates are already being used in hotels around the world, such as the Cupertino Aloft Hotel in California, where two “ALO Botlrs” deliver items to guest rooms, such as extra towels or room service items. Such robot helpers are likely to become ever more sophisticated, capable not only of fetching the port, but also having a jolly good natter.<br /><br />Also keen to hang on your every word will be AI systems building on devices like Amazon Echo — that will not only give you a running commentary on news headlines, answer your questions and carry out a host of admin tasks but also let you know what the weather is up to. Although we’re pretty sure the house of the future will still have windows for that. Not every advance will be artificial, however. <br /><br />Hoping to clear the air, as it were, designer Ankit Kumar puts the aspidistra in its place, envisaging an interior bedecked with grass panels to purify your lungfuls, while innovation company Hyve is planning to get your blood pumping with its interactive virtual-reality gym platform. Dubbed Icaros, the contraption “combines your workout with a unique flying experience”. Which makes the humble exercise bike seem remarkably pedestrian. <br /><br />The bedroom<br /><br />Technology and sleep are unlikely bedfellows: for years scientists have been wagging their fingers at those who go to bed in the company of the dazzling blue lights of their connected devices. But when it comes to hitting snooze-mode, technology need not be a nightmare.<br /><br />White noise generators such as those produced by Ectones are already available, offering the chance to drown out frisky foxes, chirpy birds and bickering kids with the comforting sound of a fan or pattering rain. But that’s a drop in the ocean compared to what the future could hold. Rather than one speaker tucked in the corner, why not drift off into an immersive, self-sculpted 3D soundscape — waves lapping at your feet, palm trees rustling above your head, your left ear caressed by the caw of a parrot while the beat of a hummingbird’s wing flutters in your right? It might sound heavenly but, as installations by sound artists such as Martyn Ware have shown, it’s also practically possible. <br /><br />And if you want to take a nice deep breath, then you’ll be glad to know that air quality is set for an upgrade too: smart monitors such as the Foobot and Birdi are already for sale, able to track everything from toxic gases to pollen and even volatile organic compounds (although whether they can sniff out musty socks yet isn’t clear). <br /><br /></p>
<p>Grab the keys and get set to unpack your boxes. It’s time to move into the future. But before you cross the threshold and command your robo-butler to get the kettle on, take a moment to stand back and admire this feat of engineering.<br /><br /></p>.<p>First off, traditional clay bricks are out. Future houses are likely to be eco-friendly, eschewing CO²-heavy manufacturing processes. Your home might incorporate building blocks constructed from natural cement churned out by bacteria, or be fashioned from fungi — indeed several companies including MycoWorks and EvocativeDesign are exploring the potential of mushroom-based materials. <br /><br />Among the innovations that could take off are super-reflective tiles for those in scorching climes and, for the rest of us, biosolar roofs that combine habitat for pollinators with energy-generating panels. Self-cleaning finishes, already on the market, are in for an upgrade too. Building on the well-established grime-busting properties of titanium dioxide, researchers are developing paints to keep your exteriors glistening even when scratched, scuffed or grazed. <br /><br />The path to your front door, meanwhile, could be embedded with tiles like those by Pavegen that can turn your visitors’ footsteps into electrical power. Although with companies such as Google promising deliveries by drone, and Starship wheeling out dumpy-looking free-to-use delivery bots, the postman won’t be beating a path to your front door for much longer. <br /><br />Your garden is also likely to see a fusion of tradition and technology — devices such as Blossom already monitor weather reports to regulate the watering of your lawn, while robot lawn mowers will keep it neatly trimmed — but the burgeoning field of digital art could finally allow you to jettison the ugly water feature and augment your lawn with beautiful and changeable statues and soundscapes created in virtual spaces. <br /><br />The kitchen<br /><br />Sometimes it seems our appetite for tech knows no bounds. So perhaps it is small wonder that kitchen innovations are moving swiftly on from a lightbulb in the fridge and softly, softly closing drawers.<br /><br />One thing that’s certainly on the menu is a spare pair of hands to wield the pans — be that a fully robotic chef like Moley that can, by motion tracking, replicate your Jamie Oliver impression to a T or the fetching-and-carrying Care-O-Bot4 by Fraunhofer. Not only can the latter turn up with a colander but it can also do the laundry and, apparently, garnish your breakfast tray with a red, red rose. If you are so inclined.<br /><br />And it’s cheers all round as be-splattered recipe books and pastry-flecked screens get the boot in favour of hygienic upgrades. Among them is a nifty vertical recipe projector, suggested by Wan-Ru Cin for the James Dyson award and an even smarter system dreamed up by students at Lund and Eindhoven Universities that not only projects recipes onto the work surface but also uses a canny array of cameras to detect ingredients and offer culinary suggestions accordingly. <br /><br />Of course, the one appliance we are all hoping to see upgraded is that bastion of the 1960s, the Teasmade. And, behold, it shall be done. Budding technologists have devised a smart coffee machine dubbed the smarter.am (app controlled, of course), while innovation has been brewing on Kickstarter with offerings such as the Qi Theteamaker that adjusts temperature and steeping time to the leaves used. <br /><br />The bathroom<br /><br />Morning ablutions might seem a private affair, but that could all change as technology finds its way into the smallest room in the house. Among those vying to keep an eye on your vital statistics is Withings, whose “Smart Body Analyzer” makes your old nemesis — the bathroom scales — look positively friendly. Claiming to measure your weight, body fat, heart rate and BMI, it will not only terrorise your tiled floor, but take to your phone: an accompanying app tracks your activity and adjusts your calorie budget for the day to meet your health goals.<br /><br /> Even that most benign of bathroom essentials, the humble loo, is in for an upgrade. Smart toilets have already hit the stores, with American firm DXV anticipating what it somewhat alarmingly terms a “contemporary movement” through its heated seats, night lights and remote controls. But alternatives are already in the offing that can monitor your bodily extrusions better than an over-competitive parent. Japanese company Toto has unveiled its Flowsky toilet that keeps tabs on your rate of gush, while MIT SENSEeable City Lab is working on a loo that can not only recognise the be-throned, but analyse their excrement to shed light on the state of their health and microbiome.<br /><br />The mirror, mirror on the wall, might finally talk back too if AI holds true to its promises. A suite of tech companies are devising prototype smart mirrors to offer advice on everything from wardrobe choice to makeup, together with news and weather updates. <br /><br />The living room<br /><br />The living room is all about kicking back and enjoying yourself, so why not start your weekend wind-down with a cool glass of something festive, ferried to your side by your very own Robo-Carson?<br /><br />Android helpmates are already being used in hotels around the world, such as the Cupertino Aloft Hotel in California, where two “ALO Botlrs” deliver items to guest rooms, such as extra towels or room service items. Such robot helpers are likely to become ever more sophisticated, capable not only of fetching the port, but also having a jolly good natter.<br /><br />Also keen to hang on your every word will be AI systems building on devices like Amazon Echo — that will not only give you a running commentary on news headlines, answer your questions and carry out a host of admin tasks but also let you know what the weather is up to. Although we’re pretty sure the house of the future will still have windows for that. Not every advance will be artificial, however. <br /><br />Hoping to clear the air, as it were, designer Ankit Kumar puts the aspidistra in its place, envisaging an interior bedecked with grass panels to purify your lungfuls, while innovation company Hyve is planning to get your blood pumping with its interactive virtual-reality gym platform. Dubbed Icaros, the contraption “combines your workout with a unique flying experience”. Which makes the humble exercise bike seem remarkably pedestrian. <br /><br />The bedroom<br /><br />Technology and sleep are unlikely bedfellows: for years scientists have been wagging their fingers at those who go to bed in the company of the dazzling blue lights of their connected devices. But when it comes to hitting snooze-mode, technology need not be a nightmare.<br /><br />White noise generators such as those produced by Ectones are already available, offering the chance to drown out frisky foxes, chirpy birds and bickering kids with the comforting sound of a fan or pattering rain. But that’s a drop in the ocean compared to what the future could hold. Rather than one speaker tucked in the corner, why not drift off into an immersive, self-sculpted 3D soundscape — waves lapping at your feet, palm trees rustling above your head, your left ear caressed by the caw of a parrot while the beat of a hummingbird’s wing flutters in your right? It might sound heavenly but, as installations by sound artists such as Martyn Ware have shown, it’s also practically possible. <br /><br />And if you want to take a nice deep breath, then you’ll be glad to know that air quality is set for an upgrade too: smart monitors such as the Foobot and Birdi are already for sale, able to track everything from toxic gases to pollen and even volatile organic compounds (although whether they can sniff out musty socks yet isn’t clear). <br /><br /></p>
