One of the things that really makes it seem like we’re living in the future is being able to control all of your appliances from a smartphone or tablet and during CTIA 2012, AT&T gave us a glimpse of that future with its home automation demo. It’s pretty cool.
The home automation demonstration was done with an iPad that could control lamps, alarms and the thermostat via a combination of WiFi and 3G. You have to hook up appliances to a connected adapter which then connects to a 3G enabled “brain” in the house that can be controlled over WiFi with your tablet.
In the demonstration below, you can see how this can be useful for turning on lights around your house without having to physically go turn them on. It’s not just about you being lazy though, as this can also be used for security. Let’s say you’ve set up the intelligent system to turn off the lights and automatically set the thermostat when you’re out and if a burglar breaks in, the system could turn on all the lights, sound the alarm and even contact the authorities.
AT&T rented out a large, beautiful New Orleans house to show off this technology and it’s tantalizing to think about how this will be used in the future.