An
idyllic Swiss village with old farmhouses and grazing cows may not seem
like the typical setting for high-tech innovation, but in Hunenberg the
lifestyle of the future is being tested to the full.
It is here, one hour’s drive from Zurich, that a young family has
spent
a year living in Europe’s first inhabited “smart house”,
where the latest
technology is being put to the test in a fully automated “internet
home”
known as Futurelife.
While the man of the house reclines on a sofa enjoying the built-in
massager, his newspaper is projected on to the wall via the internet while
an automatic lawn mower cuts the grass. His wife, who is visiting a friend
an hour’s drive away, makes a mobile phone call to the house to order
the
cooker to start heating up the evening meal.
Ursi Steiner, 42, and her husband Daniel, 39, were selected from 70
couples to live in the home with their two children. It is a move they say
they have not regretted — the house looks after them so well it can
even
check their health by taking samples to test every time they use the
bathroom and warning if a trip to the doctors is advisable.
The project, initiated by business magnate Otto Beisheim, the founder
of Metro, Europe’s largest trading business, is designed to see how
people
live with and react to new technology. “We are testing the devices,
discovering their weaknesses and making suggestions for
improvements,”
says Daniel Steiner. “Whatever does not prove its worth, goes.”
Ursi says: “The house intentionally looks like a normal house from
the
outside, which shows that you can have a normal life with top technology
—
and for me it’s now simply our home. Technology doesn’t control
our lives,
we direct the technology in the house.”
All household appliances are connected to a server in the cellar by a
wireless local area network. They can be operated by computers, mobile
phones or touch pads — from all around the house and practically
anywhere
in the world, as it is connected to the internet 24 hours a day via
glass-fibre cable.
The technology means they never have to worry if they have left the
oven on: they just get the house to check. And if shopping seems like too
much of a chore, the house can do that too. Bar codes of empty food
packets are read in the bin and put on the shopping list, which is
forwarded to the nearest supermarket.
A few hours later, a courier arrives with the food, and if nobody is at
home, the products are left in the “Skybox” — a
large-scale post box with
special compartments for food products that need to be kept cool or
frozen. The family receives a text on the mobile phone or an e-mail
informing them that the shopping has been delivered.
“Lots of things are much simpler in this house than in my old
home,”
says Ursi, “and I got used to it all really quickly, without reading
instruction booklets. With online shopping, for example, I don’t just
save
time but can avoid the crowds. And because of the Skybox, I don’t
need to
rush home to pick up the shopping.”
For her daughter Grace, 12, the home is “simply cool”,
especially the
television, which is watched cinema-style with Dolby surround via a
projector in the ceiling that puts the images on the walls. The device can
also play videos and, through the integrated web browser, the newspaper
can be brought into the living room over the internet.
Security is another advantage. The front door, for example, is opened
by a fingerprint system, and the entire house can be monitored, even from
a distance, by mobile phone.
Ursi adds: “All the devices in the house, such as the washing
machine
in the cellar, let me know when they are finished if I want them to,
whether I’m in the kitchen or upstairs in the office. I get the
message on
my mobile phone or computer.
The Futurelife house is owned and operated by Otto Beisheim Holding, in
co-operation with about 60 partner firms that supply the devices,
computers and software. The project is expected to run for three years,
with the technology being updated constantly.
Despite all the ultra-modern appliances, Ursi admits she does miss one
thing about her old home — the open fire.
www.futurelife.ch