Robots may not do the housework yet, but you can now ask your Screenfridge to have the groceries automatically delivered to your unattended Delivery Unit. Sue Carter visits the Smart House
It is the beginning of 2002 - weren't we supposed to have lots of cool gadgets and robots to take care of all the boring stuff like housework and grocery shopping by now? Didn't futuristic scientists and techno-geeks promise that we'd have robots cleaning our houses and cars that would fly? So where are they?
My expectations for the 21st century stemmed from the 1960s spoof-futuristic cartoon, The Jetsons: we'd be living in space-like places called Orbit City, with dogs that talked, robots doing the housework and household appliances that could do weird and wonderful stuff. So now the first prototype state-of-the-art IT house - The Smart House - has been built in Sweden as a collaboration project between Electrolux, Ericsson and property developer JM. Located on the island of Varmdo, 20 kilometres outside Stockholm, it is designed as a family house and is Europe's first commercial intelligent home.
The Jetsons heralded a utopian future where footpaths moved so people didn't have to walk and cars folded up into suitcases, making parking problems obsolete. Everyday life was programmed to your requirements: in the cartoon the father, George, was tossed out of bed in the morning onto a moving carpet, deposited in the shower, washed, air-dried, then moved through a series of machines that dressed him, brushed his hair and teeth, fed him breakfast, gave him a coffee and his briefcase and dropped him in his car.
Stay-at-home wife Jane had an even easier life because Rosie the household robot did all the work while she shopped in the space malls. What a life and - wait for it - the best bit is that the 21st-century working week is only three days long.
The Smart House is more realistic than TV's visions of the future. From the outside there's nothing out of the ordinary about this two-storey edifice - no robots opening the front door, no fold-up cars in the driveway. The first thing the ordinary estate agent-type (I was expecting a mad scientist) shows is the Unattended Delivery Unit (UDU) attached to the garage. A cross between a super-sized postbox and a small garden shed, the UDU is for receipt of groceries and other goods that have been ordered on the Internet and delivered while the resident is at work. Operated by keypad (the combination would be available to the company making the delivery), UDUs are becoming a common feature of many new homes as Internet grocery shopping continues to increase.
Next is the Auto Mower - which really is an intelligent gadget. This battery-powered mower is programmed with the garden details and then automatically keeps it trim. Basically, you could let this baby out in spring and not have to concern yourself with it, or mowing the lawn, until autumn when you put it away. As well as cutting the grass regularly, this gadget finds its way back to the recharging station to re-power its batteries. So there would be no surprise in looking out the window on a Saturday morning and seeing the mower doing its job. However, a closer inspection of the gardens of the Smart House reveals that, like a lazy man, the Auto Mower neglects the edges.
Access to the house is either by fingerprint recognition or electronic keys that can be deactivated if lost. The keys can also be programmed to give access to particular areas of the house for certain periods of time, so there's no waiting around for workmen or repairs to be done.
In the starry world of intelligent appliances, A-list celebrity status is accorded to that sleek and sophisticated creation, the Screenfridge. A deceptively normal exterior masks a space-age creature with almost obsessive/compulsive tendencies, which will organise your life until it is a model of super-efficiency. The touch-sensitive computer screen fitted to the refrigerator door serves as the platform and communication centre for the networked features of the IT house.
In simple terms, this flat screen is the nerve centre of the Smart House. Online Internet access, radio, television, web-based telephone, e-mail and video-camera for message recording are some of the services it provides. A scanning facility allows stock control of the contents of the fridge, reading when certain products are past their sell-by date and then going online to re-order necessary supplies. Shopping lists are also stored so that the fridge can take care of the grocery shopping with absolutely no input from the homeowner. A screen also displays dinner suggestions based on the contents of the fridge, or can message a mobile phone with the evening's menu. No more sinking hearts when an empty carton of milk, some gone-off sausages and a half-eaten slice of pizza greet an after-work forage in the fridge.
As the nerve centre, the Screenfridge also displays information on the other networked appliances and informs its owner about a cooker left on, an open freezer door or a leaking dishwasher. Innovative energy-efficient features at the Smart House save money as well as offering peace of mind. Heating and ventilation are reduced when no one is home, while lighting and electricity are switched off automatically when family members leave the house - the electronic keys feed this information into the system. No more sitting on the bus agonising about whether the iron is still plugged in and worrying that the house will be engulfed in flames.
Who would have thought the old refrigerator would championthe home-appliance revolution? A robot, maybe, or even some form of home computer, but I never suspected the fridge. So while cars don't fly or fold up into suitcases, and robots don't clean houses or iron clothes, the fridge can do the shopping, go online to send flowers to people and decide what to have for the evening meal.
That's ingenious, and since it's still early days, who knows what progress may be made during the rest of the century?
• The good news is that most of these products are available in shops across Europe; the bad news is it may require a second mortgage to indulge your futuristic fantasies. Recently arrived here is the LG Electronics American-style Internet fridge-freezer, available in Brown Thomas department stores, with a cool price tag of €17,775.
The Electrolux robot vacuum cleaner débuted in Sweden early this year, where it is "flying out of the shop doors". Electrolux, plans to roll out the product across Europe over the next six months. The Auto Mower has been available in selected stores for the past two years. The robot vaccuum cleaner and the Auto Mower retail at about €1,618.