7 ms·

It's the surveillance home for marketing and ads. Actual smart homes need a lot more dumb and existing technology first. If it were really smart, I'd have a t

It's the surveillance home for marketing and ads. Actual smart homes need a lot more dumb and existing technology first. If it were really smart, I'd have a toilet and shower that uses 1/4 of the amount water, my gas stove would not have a pilot light, and "dumb" motion sensors for light have been around quite a while - but not ubiquitous (more common the EU). Commercial buildings have had computers driving heating and cooling systems for a couple of decades (without thermostats but with temp sensors) so you don't need internet for that either. And I've never seen a house with VAV's installed in the ducts to actively heat/cool only the occupied portions of the home. And the easiest of all before construction - just "rotate" the foundation towards the sun to take better advantage of passive heating and cooling, that's an easy 15% energy bill savings.

prawn 11y ago
Or a bathroom that can be cleaned with a pressure hose rather than scrubbed by hand every couple of weeks, yet still look attractive.
- lucaspiller 11y ago
  I lived in Asia last year, and the whole bathroom was tiled and waterproof, with a small drain in the floor next to the bathtub (where water usually drops after you get out). There was also one in the kitchen, I assume they were intended for draining excess water after mopping. As well as that the bathroom had a bidet sprayer [0], so that's what I used for cleaning the floor and tub - it which was pretty much the same as using pressure washer. After I was done I just left it to dry which took an hour or so. [0] http://brondell.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/500x500/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/c/l/cleanspa_luxury_bidet_installed_shot.jpg http://brondell.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/500x...
  - witty_username 11y ago
    Yep, most homes in India are like this.
  - dsfyu404ed 11y ago
    So You want a typical state university dorm bathroom with more upscale furnishings?
  - artmageddon 11y ago
    > There was also one in the kitchen, I assume they were intended for draining excess water after mopping. My wife's family, in Iran, has a drain in the middle of the floor for this reason. She think it's very strange that this isn't common here in the US.
    - prawn 11y ago
      My bathrooms in Australia have central drains but painted ceiling, cabinetry that isn't entirely waterproofed, etc. I wonder if you could automate the cleaning and drying (blasting hot air) like some new public toilets or a dishwasher. Put away towels and trinkets, walk out, close the door and press a button. Hell, even just self-cleaning toilets and basins would be a start.
- techdragon 11y ago
  Oh my god yes. I've been describing this as a feature of my dream home for years.
jahnu 11y ago
Well put. I was even surprised that most US homes don't have an electric kettle for boiling water but put a 'dumb' kettle on a stove!
- cguess 11y ago
  To be honest, most US homes don't really need one. We're not a tea country and most boiling of water is done in a pot to cook with. It's changing, and I personally love the things (Alton Brown suggests cooking hard boiled eggs in them), but my parents don't even own a kettle I think...
  - jahnu 11y ago
    Fair enough :)
  - nmrm2 11y ago
    Or, more accurately, most US homes do have one -- it's in the coffee maker :-)
    - kazinator 11y ago
      I have used a coffee maker just to make hot water. In a hotel room. :)
  - jmspring 11y ago
    We own a kettle here in California, for tea and press coffee. In the morning, they are quick and work well. Only problems are arguments over too little or too much water. Despite a nice gas stove, the electric kettle is quicker to use. It also has some "brains" in that it shuts down after awhile if not turned off (say 3-5 minutes at desired temp). I don't know how many times I've had things cooking on the stove and forgot about them due to work, etc.
  - skrause 11y ago
    The main use of my electric kettle is parallel processing for my cooking water. I put one fourth of the cooking water into the pot and turn on the stove, then I put the other three quarters of the water into my electric kettle and turn that on as well. The kettle is usually done right before pot and then I pour all the water from the kettle into the pot. This greatly reduced the time to get boiling water for cooking.
mschuster91 11y ago
> my gas stove would not have a pilot light A gas water heater usually has an always on pilot light to avoid leaking unburned gas in case the main valve is stuck-open (or not fully closed). It's a failsafe, not a bug. (Which is why many heating systems refuse to turn back on automatically if they detect the pilot light goes off) > Commercial buildings have had computers driving heating and cooling systems for a couple of decades And they're expensive as fuck, and even today companies manage to mess up their setup (Berlin Airport cough).
- officialchicken 11y ago
  Always-on systems constantly burning petrofuels are an engineering failure. Solar radiators acting as heat exchangers have no pilot light. Neither do "instahots" or on-demand water heating systems that waste energy keeping 50+ gallons at 82+ degrees F. As for your stove, well, let's just say that there are other options for lighting them, including a bic or more "exotic" electric heat. They're only expensive "as fuck" because they're more like an overpriced SCADA system with multiple fail-overs and backups than the 12-20v system you have in your home. But that happens when you have 10 - 250 tons of heating and cooling for 500 - 30,000 people in a building. For every over-engineered Berlin Airport (Siemens runs there, right? Arup won't make that make mistake) I can show you 10,000 buildings, factories, and warehouses done right. Or one Viipuri library (1935).
  - mschuster91 11y ago
    > Solar radiators acting as heat exchangers have no pilot light Depending on the technology used, not entirely true. If molten salt is used as heat exchange medium, it must be kept above its melting temperature at all times or you can scrap all the pipework.
agumonkey 11y ago
Let me exagerate a bit, there are videos of people living in woods on youtube, I feel their 'home' is smarter than mine. Everything is crafted from almost nothing, full of nice geometry tricks (baskets, fire pump).

prawn 11y ago

Or a bathroom that can be cleaned with a pressure hose rather than scrubbed by hand every couple of weeks, yet still look attractive.

lucaspiller 11y ago
I lived in Asia last year, and the whole bathroom was tiled and waterproof, with a small drain in the floor next to the bathtub (where water usually drops after you get out). There was also one in the kitchen, I assume they were intended for draining excess water after mopping. As well as that the bathroom had a bidet sprayer [0], so that's what I used for cleaning the floor and tub - it which was pretty much the same as using pressure washer. After I was done I just left it to dry which took an hour or so. [0] http://brondell.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/500x500/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/c/l/cleanspa_luxury_bidet_installed_shot.jpg http://brondell.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/500x...
- witty_username 11y ago
  Yep, most homes in India are like this.
- dsfyu404ed 11y ago
  So You want a typical state university dorm bathroom with more upscale furnishings?
- artmageddon 11y ago
  > There was also one in the kitchen, I assume they were intended for draining excess water after mopping. My wife's family, in Iran, has a drain in the middle of the floor for this reason. She think it's very strange that this isn't common here in the US.
  - prawn 11y ago
    My bathrooms in Australia have central drains but painted ceiling, cabinetry that isn't entirely waterproofed, etc. I wonder if you could automate the cleaning and drying (blasting hot air) like some new public toilets or a dishwasher. Put away towels and trinkets, walk out, close the door and press a button. Hell, even just self-cleaning toilets and basins would be a start.
techdragon 11y ago
Oh my god yes. I've been describing this as a feature of my dream home for years.

jahnu 11y ago

Well put. I was even surprised that most US homes don't have an electric kettle for boiling water but put a 'dumb' kettle on a stove!

cguess 11y ago
To be honest, most US homes don't really need one. We're not a tea country and most boiling of water is done in a pot to cook with. It's changing, and I personally love the things (Alton Brown suggests cooking hard boiled eggs in them), but my parents don't even own a kettle I think...
- jahnu 11y ago
  Fair enough :)
- nmrm2 11y ago
  Or, more accurately, most US homes do have one -- it's in the coffee maker :-)
  - kazinator 11y ago
    I have used a coffee maker just to make hot water. In a hotel room. :)
- jmspring 11y ago
  We own a kettle here in California, for tea and press coffee. In the morning, they are quick and work well. Only problems are arguments over too little or too much water. Despite a nice gas stove, the electric kettle is quicker to use. It also has some "brains" in that it shuts down after awhile if not turned off (say 3-5 minutes at desired temp). I don't know how many times I've had things cooking on the stove and forgot about them due to work, etc.
- skrause 11y ago
  The main use of my electric kettle is parallel processing for my cooking water. I put one fourth of the cooking water into the pot and turn on the stove, then I put the other three quarters of the water into my electric kettle and turn that on as well. The kettle is usually done right before pot and then I pour all the water from the kettle into the pot. This greatly reduced the time to get boiling water for cooking.

mschuster91 11y ago

> my gas stove would not have a pilot light A gas water heater usually has an always on pilot light to avoid leaking unburned gas in case the main valve is stuck-open (or not fully closed). It's a failsafe, not a bug. (Which is why many heating systems refuse to turn back on automatically if they detect the pilot light goes off) > Commercial buildings have had computers driving heating and cooling systems for a couple of decades And they're expensive as fuck, and even today companies manage to mess up their setup (Berlin Airport cough).

officialchicken 11y ago
Always-on systems constantly burning petrofuels are an engineering failure. Solar radiators acting as heat exchangers have no pilot light. Neither do "instahots" or on-demand water heating systems that waste energy keeping 50+ gallons at 82+ degrees F. As for your stove, well, let's just say that there are other options for lighting them, including a bic or more "exotic" electric heat. They're only expensive "as fuck" because they're more like an overpriced SCADA system with multiple fail-overs and backups than the 12-20v system you have in your home. But that happens when you have 10 - 250 tons of heating and cooling for 500 - 30,000 people in a building. For every over-engineered Berlin Airport (Siemens runs there, right? Arup won't make that make mistake) I can show you 10,000 buildings, factories, and warehouses done right. Or one Viipuri library (1935).
- mschuster91 11y ago
  > Solar radiators acting as heat exchangers have no pilot light Depending on the technology used, not entirely true. If molten salt is used as heat exchange medium, it must be kept above its melting temperature at all times or you can scrap all the pipework.

agumonkey 11y ago

Let me exagerate a bit, there are videos of people living in woods on youtube, I feel their 'home' is smarter than mine. Everything is crafted from almost nothing, full of nice geometry tricks (baskets, fire pump).