Let your home do the work

If you want to see how you'll be living in the future, get down to Harrods next week and press your nose up against the glass front windows. In a bizarre Big Brother-style event, four strangers, voted for by the public on the internet, will spend five days in a goldfish bowl of a virtual home with nothing but the latest LG Internet-connected kit for company.

The four-room home's centrepiece is the kitchen. Its £5,000 internet fridge is at the heart of LG's home of tomorrow, with the guinea pigs expected to use its large touchscreen to control other appliances, such as a micro-wave, air conditioning and washing machine. They can also surf, watch TV and listen to MP3 music while rooting around for a cucumber, as well as carry out more mundane tasks such as leaving messages and making diary entries on the screen. The future according to LG (see www.lginternetfamily. co.uk) is high-tech convenience for people with more money than time.

The fridge acts as an internet hub, so all the appliances can be controlled over the web - handy when you're at work and you suddenly remember that you forgot to set your socks to tumble-dry. A barcode scan-ner will soon be added, letting you track down groceries and reorder them online. According to Andrew Mullen, technical product manager, there's already a queue of people awaiting the fridge this summer. "They're early adopters," he says. "People with limited time, busy families where both parents work."

LG will be the first company to deliver an internet fridge, but is just one of a number devising smart homes. The Home Vita system, from Samsung (www.samsungelectronics. com), is more ambitious but won't go on sale in the UK until next year. Kitchen appliances include an inter-net fridge with a detachable touch-screen that can be used anywhere in the home. It also links with your home entertainment system for movies and music. It even features a robot - the iRobo wireless vacuum cleaner, which doubles up as a security guard, with a built-in digital camera and micro-phone.

So will people in the real world make use of a home that's smarter than they are? Researchers at the Philips HomeLab in Eindhoven, Holland, which opened three weeks ago, aim to find out. They will watch volunteers stay in a futuristic home for up to two months at a time, and use concept technology including a bathroom mirror with built-in entertainment and health monitors, and an alarm clock that projects moving images on to the bedroom ceiling.

"You can't see the technology, it's all hidden and very intuitive," says a spokesperson at Philips (www. research. philips.com). "Designers and psychologists will be watching to find out how people want to interact with technology. Do they want to talk to their plasma TV? Do they want the room to recognise them, even recognise their mood, and then set the lighting and music accordingly?"

Or maybe they'll just watch TV. The only serious ongoing test of the smart home to date is the Orange at Home project in Hatfield, opened two years ago. It's intelligent, auto-mated and designed to explore the future of wireless technology in the home. Everything is connected and controllable, from Star Trek-style doors that open themselves to health monitors for self- diagnosis and remote consultation. It has hosted four families, scrutinised by researchers, and more than 1,000 visitors have been surveyed. The first results were published last week.

"We found most people didn't want to use wireless webpads or voice-recognition to control the heating and lighting," says Jon Carter, project manager. "They didn't see the need - they were happy with radiator valves and light switches."

Instead they used A4-sized portable screens to use the internet and watch movies. "People want information and entertainment anywhere in the home, not just on the TV or PC. In 10 years' time, we'll be using portable screens in the same way that we've moved to cordless phones now."

Orange (www.orange. com) is about to add more wireless entertainment to the home, including personalised TV, based on the TiVo smart video recorder. Carter predicts that this technology will come into its own when you can use a next-generation, high-speed 3G (thirdgeneration) mobile phone to look up TV schedules and set recordings when you're away. He adds that Orange will be launching new products "within 12 months" as a result of the research.

All Carter will say is that they relate to remote access, entertainment and peace of mind - and they're definitely not fridges.