The future doesn’t look quite as exciting as I imagined. No flying cars. Disappointedly, fewer personal jet packs than expected. Our homes look less like George Jetson’s and more like Fred Flintstone’s what with all the granite and no-tech compost bins substituting for hungry dinosaurs.
So I got pretty excited when I read about “advances in integrated home technology” at Mari Design. It sounds so space age fancy. What it means to the Portland company is that sales of their motorized shades and light control products are sky rocketing.
“It’s incredible how fast the new technology has taken off,” says Don Arancibia, owner of Mari Design. “In 2009, 53% of our total sales were motorized products. In the first two months of 2011, 90% of our revenue has been for motorized jobs.”
ABI Research predicts that shipments of home automation systems will exceed $11.8 billion by 2015. The best thing is that with And Global Smart Homes Market Report has looked into its crystal ball to forecast a $13.4 billion total market of global smart homes by 2014.
“New home automation applications, like those accessible through Apple’s line of handheld devices, now cost less than twenty dollars,” says Penelope Cameron, operations manager of Mari Designs. “Once you have the base system in place, the technology is much more affordable than even a few years ago
That means we can chat intelligently on our Smart phones, push an ap to lower the shades, close the blinds, turn down the lights and up the flicker of the electronic candle, all from the comfort of our beds.
I’m still waiting for my personal jet pack.
