Just envision the business opportunities in the house of the future.
You won’t find traditional furniture styles or old-fashioned appliances. Everything is ultra-modern, a blending of lifestyle and technology. Step up to the home’s four equal wings “floating” above the beautifully landscaped grounds and waterfalls. Enter the ultra-modern dining and family room, a comfortable place where the family plays, rests and dines. Check out the media room, with its giant, wall-mounted television screen. Then step out back to view the sleek and multi-functional outdoor living space.
Holy Jetsons! Want music? Just spin the latest record on that hot $79 Hi-Fi player. Or watch the Bing Crosby TV Show, sponsored by Edsel automobiles, on an enormous 14 inch CRT display.
Whoa. What time is this? It’s 1957 and you are visiting Disney’s Yesterland and, ironically, its House of the Future exhibit, where hundreds of thousands of John and Janes, and their two perfect children, caught a glimpse of what was to come down the road during the late 1950s and 1960s.
Today, that road goes through Las Vegas and this month’s Consumer Electronics Show, where the NextGen Home, encouraged in large part by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), moved from last year’s low-rent convention parking lot to a comfy South Hall indoor location. Among sponsors: Savant Systems, Carrier, Leviton, Whirlpool, Kwikset, and SunBright TV. Like the House of the Future 55 years ago, walking NextGen was an experience; it fact, iShowMedia, its producer, insists on calling it the NextGen Home Experience.
And, the moneybags at DOE showcased it as the Energy Miser Home, where there are practical and affordable actions that homeowners or their electronic system contractors (ESC) can take to lower energy costs while evolving with smarter systems, appliances, and devices. NextGen (at www.nextgenhome.com) emphasized two overarching opportunities for ESCs that go beyond home security and traditional home automation: the growing allure for home energy management and control as well as the emergence of aging-in-place products and services. Both have the potential for recurring monthly revenue (RMR) in addition to design and installation revenue.