Ask HN: If you could automate one thing in your home, what would it be?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5522844

by brwr • 13 years ago

11 54 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Suppose a genie showed up and offer to take one thing in your home and automate it. What would you choose?

Examples:

1) Dishwasher automatically starts once its full. 2) Lights turn on and off when you enter or leave a room. 3) Carpets are vacuumed by a tiny little robot without you having to lift a finger.

schiang3• 13 years ago

water to turn on when i step in the shower, turn off when i walk out or give some sort of signal

brwr25• 13 years ago

Would you rather it happen automatically or after you give a voice command such as "Shower On" or something similar? Having the water pre-heat would be very cool. The problem would be knowing when to start heating the water. Assuming the home owner doesn't follow a perfect schedule, a voice command would be the most effective. Another possible solution is that the water starts heating when you enter the bathroom. Motion detection isn't that difficult, so the latter might actually be the better solution. It would depend on how long it takes to heat the water to the desired temperature.

schiang3• 13 years ago

well if we're going down that route, the water should start heating up as i step into the bathroom.

desas2• 13 years ago

Electric showers should already heat up water immediately, any water already in the shower head might be cold though..

Houses with "combi" boilers should always have hot water on demand. The water that has been sat in the pipes for a while will have cooled though.

gatsby2• 13 years ago

Laundry.

Even with modern technology, the process is ridiculous. Collect the clothes in a hamper, carry clothes over to washer/dryer (sometimes this means walking down the street to a laundromat if you live in a large city), select all the right settings so you don't ruin your clothes, add detergent/fabric softener/bleach/etc, start first load, wait 30-45 minutes, move everything into a dryer, clean the vent, select the right cycle, wait another 30-45 minutes, put clothes back into a hamper, and repeat. Finally once it's all done, carry the clothes back to the closet and fold/hang everything.

brwr25• 13 years ago

Oddly enough, the most difficult part of this would probably be folding the clothes. Take a towel for instance. When I want to fold a towel, I begin by searching for the corners of the towel. As it turns out, this is a rather difficult problem for robots to solve.

Unfortunately, however, robots might be the most practical solution to this problem.

It could definitely be achieved, it's just a matter at engineering a new type of washer/dryer. What I don't understand is why washers and dryers are separate entities. Yes, engineering a machine that both washes and drys clothes would be difficult, but I'm confident that it could be done.

This is definitely one of the more difficult options!

gatsby2• 13 years ago

Agreed. Given the range of sizes and types of washable/foldable items (i.e. you fold a sheet differently than a pair of jeans, and socks are folded differently than a tshirts), it would take some pretty interesting technology to solve this problem. However, provided that most washers and dryers cost $500-1000+ each, there would be a lot of money available for this technology and likely a very high demand.

ahulak• 13 years ago

It's already been done: http://www.cnet.com/8301-13553_1-10009797-32.html

Like you said, it's the folding that's hard.

xauronx• 13 years ago

I had a theoretical project when I was younger to alleviate clothes folding. Essentially, you would have a vertical stack of thin layers.

When you wanted to put your clothes away the machine would lift all of the layers up until you got to an empty one. Put the shirt down, it snaps a picture of it and catalogs it. When you want to get dressed, you flick through your catalog, select a shirt and it lifts all of the layers to get to that article of clothing. Essentially you wouldn't need to fold clothes, simply lay them out.

DanBC• 13 years ago

Folding clothes always makes me think of this advanced t-shirt fold technique. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5AWQ5aBjgE)

In the UK we have washer / dryers. They're not great. They tend to be condensing, not vented, dryers. (Vented dryers are better) And there's more to go wrong. Separate machines are better.

yen223• 13 years ago

One more thing: ironing.

6thSigma• 13 years ago

One thing I've been dreaming about for years is a stacked washer/dryer where the washer is on top. Once the washer is done, the bottom opens up and it transfers into the dryer and then the dryer starts automatically.

It is probably impractical for many reasons, but I'd be the first in line to buy it if it existed.

brwr25• 13 years ago

I don't think that it is impractical at all! Certainly it would take a feat of engineering, but it is certainly possible. Check out my response to gatsby.

mcarrano• 13 years ago

I've thought about this too but rather than having two machines...

Why not have a washer/dryer work in one machine? Put your cloths in and it starts to wash, once the water is rinsed out it begins to dry.

Edit: So apparently there is such a thing! http://goo.gl/CWgKD (redirects to sears.com listing of such machine)

brwr25• 13 years ago

The problem with that machine is that it is ridiculously small. At 2.3 cu ft, you probably couldn't find a comforter in there. Good find though! It gives me hope!

brwr25• 13 years ago

I'll throw one in the ring for a few giggles: Emergency Party Mode! http://youtu.be/6x1GkgbVP1I?t=3m15s

dm8• 13 years ago

- Tiny robot comes and puts my keys in key holder.

- Turn on coffee-maker or juice-maker once I'm home

dylanhassinger• 13 years ago

groceries

brwr25• 13 years ago

What about groceries? Sorting them, buying them, keeping track of current stock?

itswitch2• 13 years ago

Doors. I would have doors open themselves, either because my phone is near the deer and my keys are nearby, or an implanted RFID chip. Or anything. Just a way for doors to open quickly and silently, to just the right amount. Not too much, not to little (it would depend on the situation).

brwr25• 13 years ago

Air compression is a valid solution here, if I am understanding what you're asking for. The trick would be developing a silencer for the compression tank similar to that of a firearm.

Check this out:

http://youtu.be/otYAm6OXnH8

itswitch2• 13 years ago

The house itself. I would have the house be like S.A.R.A.H in Eureka. Or something similar.

brwr25• 13 years ago

So you are talking about giving the house a full personality? That's a fairly interesting idea and I'm not sure if it's an active area of research.

It seems like giving the house a personality would require a huge advance in natural language processing. I don't think it would be a practical idea until a machine is built that can pass the Turing test with flying colors.

It will happen in the future, for sure. The question is when.

impendia• 13 years ago

Lawn care.

What a huge hassle.

brwr25• 13 years ago

Good idea! This isn't something that I had considered.

I imagine it would be very similar to cleaning inside. An autonomous lawn mower and robots for things such as edging would be cool, but, again, it would be a sticky situation.

scotty793• 13 years ago

Dishwasher should be integrated with dish cabinets. You put dirty dishes in the bottom part and after they are washed they should be autoatically transfered to the top part where you can get clean ones from.

brwr25• 13 years ago

Here's the rub: A lot of people keep their dishes in a cabinet above the counter, so there is empty space between the dish washer and the cabinets where the dishes should end up.

I can't think of a way around this at the moment except the possibility of in-wall dishwashers. In-wall ovens exist, so why not change dishwashers, washers and dryers to do the same?

mblakele• 13 years ago

There are a couple of brands of dishwashers with drawers. The idea is that one half gets newly dirty dishes while the other half holds the clean ones. According to Murphy, the dish you want will always be in the dirty drawer.

http://www.ajmadison.com/b.php/Drawers%3BDishwashers/N~64+42...

scotty793• 13 years ago

Lockin and unlocking. I should have a ring on my hand with rfid chip and the reader should be on the doors near the handle so the dors would unlock as I grab the handle and lock as I release the handle after closing them.

brwr25• 13 years ago

Not everyone is a fan of jewelry, so maybe a thumb scanner would be more effective? The most important part is that only appropriate parties are aloud to open the doors. The same techniques could be applied to windows.

johnyzee• 13 years ago

Why not just a remote in the keychain like we've been doing with cars for ages? I seriously don't get why this is not the norm yet.

brwr25• 13 years ago

That wouldn't actually increase security. It might help when you have a armload of groceries, but to innovate successfully would require something that makes the home owner more secure for unintended access.

desas2• 13 years ago

https://lockitron.com/ is close to that

brwr25• 13 years ago

I wanted to link to this, but couldn't remember the name. It's pretty cool!

scotty793• 13 years ago

I would like shower temperature just right. As I enter the shower temperature of my skin should be measured and the water temperature adjusted so it causes me minimum discomfort. Also the water should be additionally electrically heated in the faucet so that even first drops of it that fall on me should already have designated temperature.

brwr25• 13 years ago

Another consideration is that you might want the temperature to increase over time. I love hot showers, but I don't want the water to scald me as soon as I turn it on.

gregcohn• 13 years ago

So many of these suggestions are mechanical chore-doers. If I could automate my home to inspire me, that would be something. To wake me up intelligently, get me pumped up to work out, inspire me with art and music at other times... you get the idea.

brwr25• 13 years ago

Again, this would mean a hyper-intelligent home far beyond the realm of current artificial intelligence capabilities. At the very least, we would require a machine that could pass the Turing test and, from there, we would have to make it understand emotion.

The day of the butler and maid will soon be past, and the home itself will be your steward.

wsujosh• 13 years ago

Heat/hot tub turn on automatically before I come home. When away from more than 1 day, I turn heat down for my home/hot tub significantly. Would be great if it all turned on a couple hours before I got home.

brwr25• 13 years ago

Nest (http://www.nest.com/) is already working on a thermostat that solves this problem. I can't imagine it would be hard to adapt it for hot tubs as well. On an unrelated note, I really want a hot tub.

logn• 13 years ago

Buying things for the home. I'd like to see an interconnected network of pneumatic tubes like banks have at the drive-thru. Connect every home and business with these tubes and integrate it with internet purchasing.

junto• 13 years ago

Wasn't there an entire town in the USA where they connected the refrigerators up to a automatic restocking system. Or have I imagined that?

brwr25• 13 years ago

If you did imagine that, you have an awesome imagination! If not, please send some articles on the topic my way. I'd love to read more about it.

brwr25• 13 years ago

This would definitely be an interesting development, but I think there are a number of concerns here.

First off, that would be a lot of tubes. This problem immediately screams a graphing problem with, at the very least, number_of_cities * average_number_of_homes_per_city nodes. Even with that many nodes, the systems would be terribly inefficient.

Secondly, consider that not all packages are the same size. In addition to have a standard-sized tube, we would also need a number of tubes to handle over-sized cargo and, since we can't realistically run one of these to every home, we would still have a use for the offices of UPS and FedEx.

Another thing that worries me are the implications on us humans. If we can have everything sent to our house without ever leaving, we would all become recluses and never go outside.

dpolaske• 13 years ago

I hate wiping my ass, and I'm not a fan of the water things (bidet). I want my toilet to automatically fold up some tp and wipe my ass.

brwr25• 13 years ago

I don't really know how to respond to this one, but I definitely got a good laugh out of it. Let us know if you discover anything!

Ask HN: If you could automate one thing in your home, what would it be?

Related Stories