Home … the final frontier
How we can make our world more like Star Trek, and kill off the humble door lock and light switch
We all know the real goal of technology companies and the geeks working within them is to make the world more like Star Trek — and we’ve achieved a stunning amount of progress in just the last few years.
We have computers that can answer questions (Google) through voice-controlled assistants (Siri). We have early forms of replicators (Makerbot), the tricorder (Scanadu) and the holodeck (Oculus Rift) .
Before we get to warp drive and transporters, there’s another simple way our world can be more like Star Trek, right now. I’m talking about bringing space-age advances to a common technology that everyone uses many times a day: door locks and light switches.
I realize that improving the function of doors and lights isn’t the type of revolutionary technology shift that will save the world. However, it will make our daily lives more convenient and safe, and perhaps give us a little more time to get to the pithy stuff.
Think back to Star Trek: Did you ever see anyone on the USS Enterprise put a key in a door lock or switch on a light? Instead of this primitive encumbrance, doors satisfyingly swooshed open whenever a crew member approached, lights already on in the room.
Star Trek came to mind as I’ve been thinking a lot about home automation now that I’m an apartment owner. I have a first-generation Nest thermostat, and eagerly pre-ordered their smoke detector the day it was announced. Our garage door is on the Internet, partly because to my geek mind that seemed cool — but really to prevent it from accidentally being left open. I’m hoping to do much more to automate our home, as we also regularly have Airbnb guests and I’d like a better way to share our key.
As I scour the web for cool home automation gadgets, one major question with all these systems is how to control them all. How will I keep it simple and not totally frustrate my wife Liz, as I boldly go where few have gone before to wire up our home?
In thinking how these devices can all work harmoniously, it becomes clear that the ideal system should have no controls at all. Your home should figure out what you want based on where you are and what you’re doing. A well-designed system shouldn’t require me to give an intensive technical orientation to Liz so she can simply turn on our living room lights. The lights should go on when she’s in the room and it’s dark outside.
(I imagine eventually this leading to something like Google Now for your home where your domestic devices anticipate and respond to your actions, which is also clearly a reason why this happened.)
This technology was enabled on the newer TV incarnations of Star Trek through silver and gold-colored pendants worn on the crew’s chests. The fictional devices worked as a communication device and also tracked a person’s location, so doors would only open automatically for the authorized person.
A similar precise indoor location tracking technology exists in the real world today in the form of iBeacon, which arrived with the latest version of iOS last year. Through iBeacon, new types of Bluetooth-enabled hardware sensors can very accurately track an iPhone’s position in relation to them.
Much of the blog coverage about potential uses of iBeacon has been for retail stores, which doesn’t make much sense to me. If I’m in a store where I can touch a real product and speak to real people on staff, why should I have to pull my phone out of my pocket to get more information or a special offer? It’s a distraction, and those claimed benefits are likely a red herring to distract from the real business purpose of iBeacon: tracking customers.
But one place that I’d have no problem being tracked down to the millimeter would be in my own home. My front door should unlock itself when I get home from work; not when I approach from inside to see who’s there. Lights should turn on as I walk into different rooms, and at different brightnesses whether I’m sitting on the couch or in the chair next to it.
Once this is in place and works reliably, we won’t need keys or light switches. The best interface is totally invisible to the user.
That’s all I’m asking to make our world more like Star Trek here in 2014. Let’s save the planet from fumbling in the dark through a purse for your house keys, or getting up from the couch to dim the lights for a movie. Stop my endless quest through the cavernous aisles of hardware stores for the perfect light switch. Instead, give me a solution that gets rid of the switches altogether.
Then, we can finally get to work on those transporters.
