Digital Home Thoughts: Do We Need Networked Homes?

"Friday I went to the Intel Research Labs / Berkeley open house. Lots of sensor network and RFID projects, along with Elizabeth Goodman's Familiar Stranger project, and a few others. One in particular was around sensors for the wired, networked house. It had a poster board with all the possible wired, networked objects in the house of the future (felt kind of like a world's faire sort of thing -- E.L. Doctorow came to mind while I was talking with the guy standing there discussing it). So the guy was a young kid (he admitted to being born in India in 1983) who was very excited, gushing even, over the idea that every object in the home could be connected and talking, doing things for us while we were out, making life better, simpler, more possible (insert utopian fantasy here)."

I find this article fascinating, and even though it is not really immediately digital media related, it does bring up some fascinating questions. We are seeing more and more centralized control devices that will stream caried kinds of media to all your rooms and be able to talk to your computer, music player, TV and speakers. However I share the writer's scepticism about whether we really need a washing machine, fridge, vacuum cleaner, lighting systems, smoke detectors, furniture, HVAC, alarms, computers and network systems, entertainment and communication systems all talking to each other. And I am sure all of you would invest in a smart entertainment center, but are you ready to buy a smart house, where it may break down like your smart entertainment center?