The Future Is Coming and Houses Are Smaller
Danger Will Robinson! Your House Is Too Big!
The other day, I was talking with my wife about how homes have gotten bigger and bigger over the past decade or so. That got me thinking about how our need for space in our homes is now actually shrinking. Forget about the houses in your neighborhood with the garages so full of stuff that the cars are all parked on the driveway and on the street. I’m not tackling the subject of pack rats.
What I’m thinking about is how technology is reducing the space needed to hold our belongings. Eventually, people might not feel the need for 3,500 sq ft homes, except maybe as status symbols or to house families the size of the Brady Bunch. (Which from my memory, had a smaller than 3,500 sq ft home, but I digress.)
Now some people with drawers full of gadgets would probably disagree with my assertion, but I’m making a few assumptions that will make my vision possible over time:
- Technology will continue to advance at a rapid pace
- Internet connections will become ridiculously fast and ubiquitous
- Society will adapt and change, taking full advantage of technology and abandoning old media paradigms
- Old gadgets will so quickly become dated that when they are replaced they will be recycled rather than kept for possible future use
Okay, now that I’ve set the stage, you’re probably wondering what will disappear from our homes. Well, it’s already started. Hard copies of media will be a large part of it. Remember the shelves and shelves of books? The large CD, DVD and video game towers? Gone. All replaced by digital files that are downloaded over the internet and stored on the devices that they’re used on or stored on the internet and accessed via home or mobile broadband connections. Just think about all of our media stored in a space smaller than a toaster. That’s where we’ll be one day. Think about how much space that would save.
Now that’s a nice start, but what about all the digital devices needed to take the place of all that media? Well, first of all, the size of those gadgets would be a small fraction of the size of what they replace. Second, those devices will continue to shrink over time and converge. Just imagine a device with a screen the size of an iPad that folded in half and was just as thick when folded as an iPad. That would make it a little more than double the size of my iPhone when stored. Now picture that device handling all your eBooks, audio/music, videos and games. Whenever you need a bigger screen, you will transfer the data wirelessly from your device to any screen you have access to and will use your device as the remote/controller. Sound crazy? Well let’s look at how my 3G iPhone compares to my first Mac:
And that’s comparing my main computer from 18 years ago to the phone that I bought 16 years later and now carry in my pocket! I predict we’ll reach the world of my prediction within ten years. When that happens we won’t need separate video game consoles, computers, phones, remotes, etc. Companies will just provide software that you can download onto your device to enable those functions.
Think that’s all that will change to save us space? Not by a long shot. Think about all the filing cabinets and stacks of paper that will disappear as the dream of a paperless society becomes a reality. Even the board games I had as a kid will reside on the one device and be playable on a tabletop enabled with a 3D Microsoft Surface/Microsoft Natal technology interface that accesses the games on your device. It sounds a bit sad, but for games like Monopoly or Clue, not much would get lost in that transition.
And of course, televisions will continue to shrink until they’re the width of a thin piece of cardboard and will be mounted on the wall with no cabling at all as they’re supplied by wireless power and wireless data connections. Speakers will also shrink as more and more use technology that resonates the surface they touch to emit sound.
Even lights and light fixtures will shrink as LED lights replace incandescent and CFL bulbs and are powered wirelessly. Lights will be built right into the fixtures and furniture without taking much space and will be controlled right from our devices obviating the need for physical switches.
What won’t go away for the most part is furniture, such as dinner tables, chairs, beds, couches, etc. Although we’ll probably eliminate large desks in favor of portable, foldable workstations that we can use where we want them, when we want them. Don’t worry though, bathrooms will stay mostly the same, with the exception of some normal stylistic differences and maybe some energy and water conservation measures.
You know what? I think I want to build the house of tomorrow, today. Any company want to hire me to design it? Give me a call!
Does the house of the future sound appealing to you? Or not? Do you think we’ll ever get there? Let me know in the comments below!
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It makes sense that homes would become smaller as our demand for resources continues to grow. I’m not yet ready to give up all of my physical media, though. I still like to own the physical copies. I may get over this at some point. Or technology may simply pass me by, and there’ll no longer be any physical media to own.