arden, other than my own geeky nature, there may not appear to be too many reasons for wanting this, but there are many good reasons. It really isn't about laziness.
First, in my own defense, I am not a lazy person. I work at least 55 hours a week in my "day job" and have worked extra every Saturday and more for at least the past 7 years in other areas I am interested in (minus the two years I went to grad school and worked about 100 hours a week and read 800 pages of assignments per week). I try to exercise at least 3 times a week too. Sorry, but the laziness argument doesn't fly here.
My weekend work that I referred to has been in the area of assitive technology - technology for people who are disabled. Most of this work has been with people who are visually impaired and the various tools they can use to use a computer so they can work or go to school. When you work with people who need assisitve technology you soon realize it isn't always the person who is disabled, it is our technology. Often times a bad designs make people disabled more then their physical disability. Good designs can make people who are disabled more productive and enjoy their life. One thing that technology has promised but has failed to deliver on is integration and communication between devices. Though a lot of home automation is more about gee whiz and/or even laziness, making it affordable will have extra benefits for a wide range of people who are disabled, older and/or who want to save a little time and effort for other things that are more interesting or rewarding. Apple led the world in assitive technology in the 80s, and the Mac was THE computer for people who are disabled, but lost out due to Windows dominating computing. Macs would still be the best ever computer for accessibility if developers (who are forced to write for Windows) could put their efforts toward Mac solutions. Any way, the same things that benefit people who are disabled often benefit people who are not disabled. The "curb cut" is a classic example, but there are many more that most people don't even know about. OCR, word prediction in cell phones and other examples originated in assitive technology. Also, assistive technology uses almost every kind of new technology to help people who are disabled. So, if I or enough other people are too lazy to turn on a light, it will result in cheaper and easier to use solutions for someone who is physically disabled and cannot turn on a normal light switch.
Outside of disability issues (which could account for at least 1000 good uses of home automation) I can think of many reasons how an automated home can help people and not be related to laziness.
1. Energy saving - lights, AC and heat all regulated by time of day and activities by people who live in the house (you don't need a computer on all day to run this either).
2. Time saving - add up all the little things we do in our houses every day and give us an extra hour or two to read to our kids, go on a walk...
3. Increase the functional value of all our home electronics.
Regarding 3, here is where I do get a little lazy and selfish. As a result of my not being lazy in working, I have spent tons of money on technology, but I am not happy with the lack of integration between what I get for my hard earned money. In my living room is a A/V system I have spent about $6000 on, and let me tell you it sounds great (my AV receiver can be updated for new software - but only via a PC). The A/V receiver's second zone allows me to listen to it in another part of the house (for example, I can listen to the radio from the AV receiver while it plays cable TV in the living room). In my office is my G4 DP 1 GHz I spent about $2500 on (bought it when it came out), plus another few grand in monitors, and AV gear in there. There are a few things I would like to do with BOTH systems but cannot (easily).
One of the things I would like to listen to (in the living room) is the internet radio stations I always listen to when I work in my office. I can run an audio cable from the Mac to the AV system, but I can't control the Mac from the living room. Despite having spent nearly $10,000 on computer and audio equipment, short of moving my G4 into the living room (something the wife will NEVER let me do), there is almost zero integration here. PC users have a range of cheap products they can use to serve up MP3s and/or internet radio from their computer to their stereo and even control their PC remotely, but since I have a Mac (a sign of good taste I think), I cannot. I'd like to watch some of my video I edit on my mac in my living room without having to run cables and/or burn a DVD every time. Again, PC users have this sort of thing available. I do not.
So what do I do - work harder so I can buy radios, stereos and computers for every room in my house? Isn't $10k enough? How about 2k? It should be.
Any way, if this keeps up, guess what I will buy for my next computer? I hate to say it, but if Apple doesn't keep up on this, I'm reverse switching. I have spent tons my hard earned money on personal macs for years - 10 + a newton, iPod... + software and peripherals - all from Apple. Probably $30,000. I have convinced at least 200 computer purchases by friends and family to go to Macs. Am I the kind of customer they want to lose?
Just this past day I ordered about $300 worth of X10 stuff and cables that will let me do a lot (though far from all) of what I mentioned in the previous message. Still, it is far from elegant and what is missing is software, communication protocols and neat hardware features. Apple could to this! All the pieces are there, we just need someone to put them together.
Sure home automation may seem frivolous, but so are luxury cars, clothes, perfume, gold clubs and even our dumb home computers. Like other seemingly frivolous things, home automation can and will generate jobs. The market in home automation right now is about 2 billion a year. This is expected to jump to 10 billion in few years. Apple can get in on it or not, but it is coming either way. It is the closest thing to a sure bet in technology these days. Could Apple use a bit of that 10 billion dollars?
The whole purpose of this thread, and others I have written on is to simply talk about how Apple could be THE leader in a business that is growing rapidly and is right up their ally. Am I voice in the wilderness? I didn't say "digital hub," Steve Jobs did! So where is it today? iPod was the last big step and it paid off - everyone copied it, but as usual, they copied it poorly, but what has Apple done since to really add to the digital hub? Little video cameras and MP3s and all the great (for the most part) iApps are part of it, but they need to lay a home network infrastructure. Take the Mac out of the home office WITHOUT taking it out of the home office! That is where computing is going. Apple would and could do home automation so much better than ANYBODY, but they may miss the boat. An Apple home automation system, that worked as well and was as innovative as all Apple products usually do, would be a big selling point to sell more Apple computers in homes (THE only place they can sell computers!).
Oh, Mr. K., I'm not a programmer, but someone did write the software -
http://www.alwaysthinking.com/products/products.html and I bought it! I ALWAYS support the little Mac developers and this guy did a nice job, but is limited to some issues with hardware due to the PC-ness of the world. Why can't Apple help him and other like him? For example, speech control is an option, but PC users have far more powerful, cheap and reliable options here.
