In the future my Mindhome will take care of me. That is the promise of the robotic smart home. Included in this request is that the home also take care of itself - after all if a home can take care of me, it can take care of itself too. The home should serve me, it should run diagnostic tests on itself every day, and it should call service providers whenever it requires servicing. Home ownership and home automation are converging in the age of the Internet of Things. It is not simply that a home has smart locks and some cameras that can detect a loved one or service provider. The future of the smart home - the robotic smart home - promises so much more including but not limited to the following major breakthroughs:
- Hygiene: keeping the home clean better than a homeowner or cleaning person could with a regular daily, weekly and monthly cleaning cycle replete with all the tricks for getting rid of dirt, dust and other toxins. That includes cleaning the sinks and wiping down the countertops, washing pots, pans and dishes. Even disinfecting the cutting boards. Weekly tasks like cleaning the coffee pot, deodorizing the garbage disposal, carpets and upholstery and mopping the floors should become standard, automated robotic smart home tasks.
- Health: keeping the people in the home healthy with the ordering and farming of fresh food, dedicated telehealth setups with multiple medical devices, and keeping all the home’s water and air as clean and fresh as you find it in nature’s best environments like our Colorado Rocky Mountains. Food preparation should be on demand too such that any time someone in the home wants some food or drink - packaged or prepared - the robot fetches, prepares and serves the homeowner in real time.
- Structure: the robotic smart home should act as an ongoing diagnostic tool for the home 365 days per year and not only respond to emergency situations like a leaky pipe or smoking cigarette on the floor but also provide a constant scorecard and indication to consumers where they need to spend on home maintenance. It also needs to take the next step and recommend and price both parts and labor for customers so that they can see a range of options including affordable options by the best service providers and what it will cost them in six months if the repair is neglected.
- Financial: the robotic smart home will lower average costs to own and maintain a home continually and also go the next step and turn the home itself into a money generator What can a home produce for income? Energy, food and much more. Increasingly robotic smart homes should farm food for the home’s inhabitants and create excess bounty for the local community supported agriculture (CSA) cooperative or similar entity. It should also mine energy from the sun and wind and sell that excess energy to local businesses and other homeowners that need it. AirBnB has opened our eyes to how any single room in a home could be turned into a cash machine, but smart homes greatly expand the possibilities of how a home can be positioned to produce cash flows for its owners.
This is a grand vision for the future of homes and it is all made possible by the explosion of robotic technology and smart home technology that is happening all around us right now.