Archive - Imperfect Now

Dial Up Your Toaster

Cellular phones have been used to remotely detonate bombs. Instead, why not use them to remotely cook your turkey?

At the dawn of the internet age, consumers were promised that one day all of their home appliances could be controlled remotely from their internet desktop. That hasn’t happened yet, probably because there really isn’t much of a point.

Without national Wi-Fi coverage bringing internet access everywhere, users, in most cases would not have access to the internet even if their VCR was connected to the internet. What good would it do for someone sitting at their home computer using the internet when they could manually turn appliances on and off? Remote access is virtually useless unless users can use it anytime, anywhere.

A few homes and appliances have experimented with remote access. But for the most part, these systems have relied on experimental technology and have cost a lot to implement. And of course, for most users, internet access is available at the office or in the home, severely limiting when users could control their appliances.

Meanwhile, automated computer phone systems have become a common part of the customer experience. Whether sending a package, requesting technical support, or ordering from a catalogue, customers have grown accustomed to punching commands into their phone keypad. More sophisticated phone systems use voice recognition software so that users can speak commands over the phone and a computer understands the words.

While this has been happening, the cellular phone revolution has decimated traditional landline providers. In the 1990’s, homes were adding telephone lines for dial up internet access. Many providers expanded their services and the cost of telephone lines went down as everyone cashed in on the internet bubble.

Now the reliance on broadband internet and wide use of cellular phones has reduced the demand for land based phone systems leaving many providers with plenty of capacity and few customers. With land line telephone technology at an all time low cost and with cellular market penetration at an all time high, its time to combine that technology to make remote access of the home possible.

Home appliances could be connected to a central computer located in the house. The computer would be connected to a land based telephone line that users could dial into on their cellular phone. Using simple voice commands [or if necessary, the keypad], customers could talk to their appliances just as if they were there in the home.

A similar system could be set up connecting the appliances to work over always on broadband internet. Users could still dial in to a central server and the server could connect over the internet to the home appliances. However, always on internet is not available in all places yet, and usually costs at least forty dollars a month. Even DSL requires a land phone line installation, raising the price to that of most cable service. On the other hand, a traditional phone line often costs less than ten dollars a month making such a service available to homes who either cannot afford broadband internet or those who choose not to have it.

Since customers are already accustomed to communicating with computers by telephone, the learning curve for such a service would be very low. Even people who don’t normally use computers often encounter automated telephone systems.

The main hurdle involved would be replacing traditional appliances with those that could handle the telephone commands. The replacement cost for an entire house would begin to add up quickly. New homes on the other hand, could easily be equipped with remote accessible appliances.

Some of the uses of remote home access could include: programming TiVo or a VCR; turning indoor and outdoor lighting on and off; arming and disarming a security system; turning an oven on; resetting the house thermostat; opening and closing garage doors. But more importantly, once a system to remotely connect to home appliances is established, further appliances would develop to piggyback off the existing network.

Of course, remote access to home appliances is an old idea that never came to fruition. The internet was supposed to allow us to turn on our coffee machines a decade ago, but still the best solution is programming it ahead of time.