Just some interesting history on what we thought the digital home and home automation would be like back in the late 90s before the internet was really really big
Discuss...
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@eaton.blumenstein , thanks for posting. Some of it, especially on the hardware side, seems so quaint now (CDs, video tape, dedicated video phone stations, etc). However, very Nostradamus like with regards to direction of digital comms technology, such as IP as a standard, home networking, convergence of consumer electronics and computing integration, and future goals of a common inter-device communications protocol (Matter anyone?). Also, very insightful of one of the interviewees saying that it will take quite a bit of time for companies to buy into a common method of interlinking devices (he seemed to have an appreciation of the obstacles along the way such as proprietary interests and the “closed garden” approach, although those terms were not used in the video). Interesting debate between the dedicated device argument (the guy arguing that people would want a separate electronic devices such as separate electronic books, phones, cameras etc vs an all-in-one smart device). Obviously smart phones won out overall FTW. As good as some of the predictions were, one of the major misses (in that it wasn’t discussed) was the growth and impact of mobile devices/computing. Interesting that a lot of the predictions having to do with home automation (especially with integration of various devices in our home) are the things we are discussing (and doing) in this community with Hubitat. Thanks. Was a very fun watch.
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I would actually recommend watching a few of the other episodes, they are all on YouTube and completely available. If you really have the time and want to go through the early episodes then through the later episodes there are periodically things discussed like pdas and smartphones. I used to watch the show religiously when I was a kid believe it or not and as it progressed, it's funny to watch how things have changed over 5, 10, wo 30+ years.
What's even more interesting is looking up a lot of the featured companies and how so many crashed and burned and how many had the wherewithal to survive.. So many bad technologies as well as opinion in this video too... Funny AF (granted hind sight is 20/20)
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Never missed an episode! That was back when I actually had a television, in the days of dial-up modems and such. Hard to believe the program ran for over 20 years covering such a broad range of computing topics!
I'm much less familiar with the show's spin-off Net Café, also hosted by Cheifet.
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I guess in the end what may seem like quantum leaps to us now are essentially calculated and manageable increments in improving our experience. That's not to diminish the features like voice control, or the magic phone if you prefer :-).
Also, discounting the grievances people may have around common standards such as Zigbee and Zwave, when implemented in a consistent way, they have laid platform(s) that allow for systems such as HE to exist and add to the benefits that this collective effort provides.
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Looking back even further, if you check out some of the (mostly faked) "futuristic technologies" promoted at World Fairs from the early 1900s onward, it's even more amazing that the various industries converged to this point. Voice control. Touch screens (which amazingly Star Trek's pilot episode presaged in 1966!). Speech synthesis. Wireless transmission. Discrete circuits. Remote sensing. Color video. Miniaturization. All of it.
Nearly 100 years later we're talking into cellphones with viewscreens running on batteries the size of a few playing cards. Kind of mind-boggling AF.
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