High Tech and Daily Life - The Home Electronics Revolution

In the 1970s and early 1980s, advances in circuit manufacturing lowered the price of integrated electronic components from hundreds of dollars to less than $10 in some instances. Since then electronics chips, displays, and sensors have worked their way into everything from washing machines to hair dryers to coffeemakers. Overall, such electronics have given people more control over the settings on their appliances, lighting, and heating and cooling systems.

High Tech Home Features

By late 2004, many home appliances and systems had become fully programmable and even Internet accessible.

TABLE 9.8

Religious and spiritual uses of the Internet, 2003
N = 1,358 Internet users.
SOURCE: Stewart Hoover, Lynn Clark, and Lee Rainie, "Religious and Spiritual Uses of the Internet," in Faith Online, Pew Internet and American Life Project, April 7, 2004, http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Faith_Online_2004.pdf (accessed January 11, 2005). Used by permission of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, which bears no responsibility for the interpretations presented or conclusions reached based on analysis of the data.
Sent, received, or forwarded email with spiritual content	38%
Sent an online greeting card for a religious holiday such as Christmas, Hanukah, or Ramadan	35%
Read online news accounts about religious events/affairs	32%
Sought information on the Web about how to celebrate holidays or other significant religious events	21%
Searched for places in their communities where they could attend religious services	17%
Used email to plan a meeting for a religious group	14%
Downloaded or listened online to music with religious or spiritual themes	11%
Made or responded to a prayer request online	7%
Made a donation to a religious organization or charity	7%

Interactive, online thermostats, for instance, were installed in many new homes. These thermostats, which can be connected to the Web, give the homeowner the option of setting and monitoring the temperature of the house remotely from a computer or a laptop. The thermostat also alerts the user of a malfunction or a gas leak in the system. Zone lighting systems contain electronics that enable homeowners to program lighting configurations for multiple areas of the same room. With the touch of a button, one side of a room can be illuminated for reading while the other side remains dark for watching television.

Another programmable fixture that was available in many newer homes was the electronic keypad locking system. The advantage of the keypad over the normal lock is that it can be reprogrammed easily. If a homeowner wants to keep someone out, it can be done by changing the lock code. The lock can also be set to let in certain people, such as a painter, only during certain times of the day. Some keypad locks contain circuit boards that can be plugged into a broadband connection, which gives the homeowner the option of changing the lock codes remotely or keeping a record of who came and went. By 2004 some companies offered automated home systems that tied the lights, the door locks, the thermostat, and home security system into one control center that could be accessed by the Internet. According to "Building an Electronic Fortress" by Charlie Wardell in the November 2004 issue of Popular Science, these systems can be placed in different modes for when the homeowner is awake, asleep, or away. When the homeowner goes out of town all that he or she has to do is press a button and the lights are turned off, the alarm is set, and the thermostat is turned down. These systems could be installed for $1 to $2 per square foot in 2004.

TABLE 9.9

Church attendance and Internet activities, 2003
N = 1,358 Internet users.
SOURCE: Stewart Hoover, Lynn Clark, and Lee Rainie, "Church Attendance and Internet Activities," in Faith Online, Pew Internet and American Life Project, April 7, 2004, http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Faith_Online_2004.pdf (accessed January 9, 2005). Used by permission of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, which bears no responsibility for the interpretations presented or conclusions reached based on analysis of the data.
	Those who get religion news online	Those who use the Internet for personal religious and spiritual purposes	Those who use the Internet for institutional religious and spiritual reasons
Attend church at least once a week	39%	67%	51%
Once a month	36	56	45
Several times per year	27	50	26
Don't attend services	23	38	16

Smart Appliances

As technologies progress and electronics become even more affordable, makers of appliances will likely continue to add additional electronic features. Whirlpool, for instance, has been working with engineers at Michigan State University to create a talking washing machine to aid blind people when they do their laundry, according to "Students Make Washing Machine Talk" by Geoff Adams-Spink (BBC News World Edition, September 12, 2004). In addition to containing Braille instructions, the washing machine tells the user what command he or she has selected as each button is pushed or knob is turned. A status button has also been incorporated, which reads back the current settings when pressed. The additional circuitry costs only about $30 to install, and the prototype unit was being tested in the home of a blind couple as of September 2004.

A number of technologies were emerging in 2004 that may someday allow people to operate every major and minor appliance via a remote control or telephone. One such device, known as the ZigBee, was being developed by the ZigBee Alliance, a consortium of seventy companies that included Motorola, Honeywell, Samsung, and Mitsubishi Electric. According to "Radio Chip Heralds the Smarter Home" by Duncan Graham-Rowe (New Scientist, August 7, 2004), the ZigBee is a networkable, low-power, two-way radio microchip with a range of about 250 feet that can receive and send data. Such chips could be implanted into everyday appliances and tied into their controls. A PDA (personal digital assistant) or some type of universal remote control would then be employed by the homeowner to transmit and receive signal to and from the chips. In this way, every appliance or entertainment system in the house could be monitored and activated via remote control. A base station capable of communicating with the ZigBee chips could easily be attached to a phone line as well. By calling into the base station via phone, the homeowner could check the status of an oven or a coffeemaker using the touch-tone commands.