(upbeat, bouncy music)
- [Grant] In the last six months,
we've seen this home of the future here in Austin, Texas
go from pieces in a factory
to a beautifully designed house
packed with the latest connected technology.
The thing about aiming for the future,
is that it's a constantly moving target.
Technology and design evolve at a rapid pace,
and the last thing you'd want is for your home of the future
to feel like it's living in the past.
What clues can we take from the home of today
to help us determine what we need in the home of tomorrow?
(lighthearted, bouncy music)
- I tried to collect every image that existed
of a home of the future, and I started in the 1920s.
- [Grant] This is Michelle Addington,
Dean of The University of Texas at Austin
School of Architecture.
- Even as certain styles might have changed,
they're all the same.
Always the first part of the home of the future
is automating the door.
One in the 1960s involved a camera system.
- [Cronkite] As we approach, our arrival could be observed
by an automatic closed circuit television system,
which would notify our hosts.
- [Grant] This special, hosted by Walter Cronkite in 1967,
took a look at the home of 2001.
Like our home today, it featured surround sound speakers,
a console to control the entertainment center,
and a monitor for surveillance cameras.
Today, we're living all those dreams,
but it's still a home of the future
and not a home of the present.
Why, after 50 years, are we still thinking
about our home this way?
What's stopping us from making more radical shifts
in what we think of as a home?
- Still four walls and a door.
That's the part that is familiar to us.
That's the part we keep.
You know, a lot of it has to do with risk.
You know, for many people, this is their life savings.
- It's the single most expensive thing you'll ever buy
as an individual.
- Absolutely.
And so it can tolerate much less risk
than you can in many other things.
As we see in so many other areas,
technologies have rapidly evolved
throughout the 20th century,
and yet, in the case of the smart home,
we're looking for ways to implement the latest technologies,
but to do the things that we've always done.
- [Grant] So what if we allow ourselves
to rethink what we assume a house needs to be?
What kind of improvements could we make
if we discard basic assumptions of what a house should do?
- Right now we have heating ventilation
and air conditioning systems,
so all of our bodies are surrounded in this blanket
of homogeneous conditions
that are contained by the envelope of the house.
It's a clumsy way, it's an expensive way,
and it's an incredibly energy-intensive way,
and, interestingly enough, not a particularly effective way
of dealing with how the body exchanges heat.
So everything that we're doing, all around here--
- Wasted.
- [Grant] Assuming we could successfully utilize a system
to heat or cool our bodies in a more efficient envelope,
it would obviously reduce
the energy demand on our home drastically,
and it could even shift
how we think of those four walls and a roof.
But I've gotta be honest,
it's a hard thing to see happening.
To think about a future without
a cooling system for the house, as thermally inefficient
as it may be for our personal bodies,
it seems difficult to accept.
- So this is why you kind of have to step back
and sort of reimagine what this environment is gonna be.
- [Grant] And that's partly why imagining the far future
of home design is difficult.
Our cultural and physical environments
tend to change slowly with time.
While architectural trends are evolving from tiny homes
to communal housing, it's rare to see mass adoption.
Even our home's modular design
is far from becoming mainstream.
Modular's been around for decades,
but still isn't overtaking the market.
It's most economical at scale,
and the pipeline just isn't large enough to reduce costs
around factories and shipping.
But without our basic framework of four walls and a roof,
what are some areas that could change radically
in the next few decades?
Let's turn to our kitchen.
(upbeat, bubbly music)
- The one thing that you can't miss
in our home of the future, is this.
The smart fridge.
First of all, it's got a giant OLED screen.
You can draw on it,
find the absolute worst way to surf the internet--
(laughs)
this is absolutely a crime--
and you can make it transparent
so you can see inside without having to open the door.
Let's say you're at the market
and you can't remember what you're out of.
You can call up the smart fridge on an app,
turn on the internal cameras,
and see what you're missing.
And, oh yeah, there's a Bluetooth speaker.
For reasons.
This is all fun to play with for now, but bear this in mind.
The average refrigerator lasts about 15 years.
15 years ago,
this was the most popular cell phone.
So when we try and consider
what appliances will last with us
into the next home of the future,
I'm not sure if the smart fridge checks all of the boxes.
But hey, this is only version one.
(upbeat bass music)
When I think about tech that changed my life,
I think about maps.
I used to have a map for every region I was in
and would draw the path before I set out.
Then there was the age
of printing customized directions on MapQuest,
and now smart phone GPS.
I didn't even know it was a problem
until technology gave me a much better solution.
And after that, there was no going back.
Is there anything like that that you can see,
a problem that we didn't even know that we had
that the smart home can solve for us?
- I think particularly around the issue of food.
One of the reasons that people are not
making the best food choices today,
especially families with children,
is because of the impracticality of making sure
that you have healthy food at all times.
- This is Anne Boysen, a futurist who runs
a strategic consulting business here in Texas.
- I think that for families,
the convenient choice is not always the healthiest choice.
- Exactly.
- And so, potentially, a home of the future
could help you get closer
to having those two things be in line.
- Yes. And then we're not wanting to go back after that.
- The way we eat has actually always played a role
in imagining what the home of the future will be,
typically revolving around speed and convenience,
like the instant pizza in Back to the Future Part II.
(pizza maker dings)
(woman coos)
And remember that Cronkite piece?
- [Cronkite] This souffleé normally cooks in 40 minutes.
With microwaves, it's ready in 90 seconds.
- [Grant] Ah, the miracles of the microwave.
(microwave door slams)
- [Grant] But quickness and convenience
also usually means less healthy.
Unless, in the home of the future, it doesn't have to.
- Now I see the solutions to these problems
particularly in two areas.
One is the ability to order staples and foods
that we're using all the time.
So, for example, instead of you having to know,
"Oh, I'm running out of milk," you have a scanner
in your refrigerator that's finding out,
"Oh, you're running low on milk,
let's go ahead and just order."
And then, you might even do some of the agriculture yourself
in your home.
- Grow your own food in your home of the future.
- Yes. Growing your own food,
either in your own home,
or if you live in some sort of high-tech
community garden or a home garden,
which is hydroponic,
which is using computer precision
to find out exactly how much it should be watered,
what type of nutrients,
down to the fine-tuned,
very high-resolution level,
and that way you can have much more control
over the food that you're using
and consuming on a daily basis,
and save you a lot of time at the same time.
- [Grant] And if you link these two ideas,
you've got your high-tech community garden
delivering the best quality food to you when you need it.
It's a great dream,
and who knows,
maybe 50 years from now,
it could be a reality.
(futuristic electronic music)
To be honest,
it's hard to even build today's home of the future,
let alone tomorrow's.
Our house was built specifically with that mission in mind:
to be the home of the future.
And in a lot of ways, it is.
Our brain pulls all of our devices into one control system,
even giving us a live read out of our power usage.
Our solar panels are built into our car port,
and we even have an entire audio system
hidden in the backyard landscaping.
There's still a ton more we would've wanted
to add to this house,
but with delays in our timeline,
zoning limitations,
and budget overages on site,
actually building a house still requires compromises.
And while some technology like our smart fridge
may not seem particularly future-proof,
you can see how there are building blocks
for something more ambitious down the line.
Historically, tech and design takes time to be perfected.
And once they are, we're already hard at work
imagining the next steps they can take.
But, at least for now, I'm just gonna enjoy the time
I have in my home in the present.
(upbeat music)
Thanks so much for following along
in our "Home of the Future" series.
How would you rethink the home for the future?
Let us know in the comments below.
If you've enjoyed this show,
check out our new "Future of Music" series
hosted by The Verge's own Danny Deahl.