As smart technology, and control in particular, advances at the rate of knots, some commentators wonder if we’ve reached the pinnacle of what sci-fi predicted for decades previous. Anna Hayes looks at how far control has come and where it might be going next.

Pop culture, and science-fiction in particular, has always been about naval gazing and guessing as to what’s coming down the line.

We’ve ‘kind of’ got the hover board from ‘Back to the Future II’, the tablets used to monitor the crew in ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ are ubiquitous in our everyday lives – interestingly, that movie featured quite heavily in a court battle from 2011 between Samsung and Apple over where the design of the former’s offering originated…

But perhaps one of the most interesting sectors of this industry for pop culture depiction is that of control systems and we can list any number of examples on that front: JARVIS from ‘Iron Man’, HAL 9000 from the aforementioned ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, Samantha from ‘Her’, and the list goes on.

But when you look at the functionality of these systems, and you look forlornly (at least in my case) towards the smart speaker that doesn’t understand your accent, you realise that there’s still a way to go.

A lot done, more to do

There’s no denying that control systems have advanced dramatically in recent years and where we were five years ago, to where we are now, to where we might be in five or ten years’ time will be vastly different.

Dee Bubeck is the director of residential systems for Crestron in Australia and he feels that technology in general has come a long way, pointing back to early sci-fi like Star Trek and explaining that the things that blew people’s minds at that time included the automatic sliding door which is, obviously, commonplace today.

“Automated lighting – walking into a room and having the light turn on without you doing anything was once considered futuristic. But obviously, now, motion sensors and things like that are standard.”

Chowmain Software managing director Alan Chow builds control drivers for various devices and services; he also points to early Star Trek series as a sign of how far the technology has come, while being inspired by these earlier depictions.

He remarks upon one episode where Scotty tries to interface with an old 1980s computer by talking to it.

“He’s eventually told to use the keyboard to which his response is ‘keyboard…how quaint’.”

He also points to the nod towards touchscreen in Star Trek: The Next Generation where the characters used PADDS (Personal Access Display Devices) which were small, thin, sleek, and devoid of buttons – sounds familiar.

Savant’s senior vice president of customer operations Angela Larson says it is great to work in an industry where you can compare your daily work to the imaginations of pop culture giants and think about bringing those creative dreams into reality.

“We can look to many pop culture portrayals of futurism that have become part of our modern-day living, such as voice control, dog watching through the security camera, talking wrist watches, and returning home to the perfect environment every time.”

For Adam Merlino, senior director for Asia Pacific and South Africa for Snap One, he believes strong progress has been made when you consider that the best forms of control are non-pervasive and invisible.

“For example, the smart home can respond to climate and light with sensors that trigger events automatically. Pop culture has certainly been driven by voice control.”

You’re the voice, try and understand it

One of the most common talking points when discussing control is that of how voice is used – of all the technology in this space, it’s probably the one that is, for want of a better phrase, ‘not quite there yet’. I’ve written before about my struggles with both Google and Alexa – the former doesn’t understand me and the latter understands but ignores me.

Adam feels that voice control is, at present, best used to complement physical control.

“While it works well for many situations, we often still default to physical controls like light switches or TV remote controls. Both have a place in the smart building of today and the future as technologies continue to develop with more natural language and adaptive algorithms.”

Angela feels that voice control has been the dream for some time and offers strong value in the fact that it removes physical touch from the control experience.

“This is useful in a myriad of scenarios, from convenience when hands are full, to health and wellness with touchless control. But voice, like anything else, has limitations including compatibility and integration across all devices in a home.”

Dee feels that, realistically, voice control is only about five years into its journey and while it has some distance to cover yet, it has come a long way in a short space of time.

“The gold standard of voice control is obviously JARVIS from ‘Iron Man’ – we’re still a way off that but it’s only really been around for about five years. We’re actually building voice recognition into our products to help make it a bit more seamless.”

This move towards built-in interface also speaks to the idea of making the technology smaller and less intrusive. But Dee points out that Google and Alexa units are consistently getting bigger in order to be used as music speakers.

“That’s taken away from what we’re trying to achieve in one way, we’re trying to have less actual hardware and make it less obtrusive. But these guys are pushing it back the other way because they want to sell boxes and hardware.”

The nature of how we communicate with these devices is also pertinent with, for the most part, smart assistants requiring very specific commands to operate from. But one company has gone to the head of the class in that regard.

Josh.ai chief executive Alex Capecelatro says that user experience is limited by services that require such exact trigger phrases: “Having to memorise what to say in order to communicate has resulted in voice being perceived as more of a novelty than a legitimate interface that is usable across feature-sets.”

He explains that with Josh.ai, while perhaps not having the same level of response to general purpose questions, its proprietary natural language processing, coupled with room-aware microphones, enables their clients to speak to their surroundings in a more intuitive way. For example, saying ‘Ok Josh, I’m cold,’ will trigger a thermostat adjustment.

Tomorrow’s World

Looking to the future, the possibilities seem endless in terms of what can be achieved.

Angela feels that compatibility will be a key issue: “One of the challenges for manufacturers is compatibility and integration designed so that the homeowner is not saddled with too many disparate control solutions – one for the doorbell, one for music, one for security, etc.”

She feels that control is beginning to surpass the futuristic portrayal as the industry tracks toward true artificial intelligence (AI) across not only the security space, but also in energy and networking.

“A smart home now goes beyond entertainment, comfort and convenience and includes energy independence, safety, wellness and dynamic network security,” she says.

“A smart home will soon be able to recognise weather patterns and time-of-use utility pricing in order to make decisions on how best to apply available energy resources.”

And it’s in that latter area that Angela feels there will be considerable progress.

“Aging grids, climate events and concern for the environment are driving rapid development. Imagine a home that knows a storm is approaching, and therefore begins to charge batteries in order to safeguard against possible loss of grid power while preserving maximum backup capacity,” she says.

“Taking it a step further, the system monitors power levels and deactivates certain loads (devices) to conserve energy as needed. The combination of energy management and AI is one example of technologies we will see practically applied in the not-too-distant future.”

Alan is keen to see the impact that virtual reality will have in this area, citing the 2018 movie ‘Ready Player One’ as a source that not only took its lead from new technology but has likely inspired more research and investment in that particular area.

“What fascinated me [about the movie] was that they had omni-directional treadmills and haptic feedback suits that provide the user with unlimited freedom to roam and the feedback of touch throughout their body,” he says.

“What I (and probably many others) didn’t know was that both of these technologies have been in development for many years and are, in fact, very much real. I suspect the movie took inspiration from these real technologies and took them to the extreme. What I would like to think as well is that the movie has proved other inspired inventors to invest their energy into furthering this technology.”

Control systems becoming more intuitive, through the use of AI, is what Adam expects in the future.

“Using AI in the home could track typical use and offer recommendations on events, scheduling, and more. For example: when the alarm is armed, a smart home can simulate occupancy to deter intruders; each morning a smart home can tune in your favourite radio station at 8AM; or each night at 8PM the smart home can disable the WiFi for children.”

He says that while there will be implications in relation to data and privacy, Control4 Smart Home OS is equipped with Privacy Guard to give homeowners control over what information is shared with third-party control vendors.

Josh.ai treads a similar path in relation to data and privacy with Alex pointing out that nothing is listened to or leveraged for targeted advertisements.

“From a privacy perspective, we are already on our way towards an Orwellian sci-fi future and the next few years will be critical for users to reclaim their data. When evaluating potential smart home devices, the main concern we hear from clients is a lack of trust in the big tech companies placing microphones throughout their homes. Users of the mass market solutions are continuously unnerved by targeted social media and email advertisements based on conversations they are having behind closed doors.”

But from a development point of few, Alex is keen to see how advances in sensor technology will impact on automation.

“A truly smart (and sci-fi worthy) environment will anticipate a user’s needs before he or she needs to push a keypad button or give a voice command.”

Dee also feels that smart homes and technology advances around that area will see more proactive systems that can respond not only to a person being in a room, but respond based on who that person is.

“I think it will evolve over time to get to the point where the system will recognise who has walked into the room and apply settings based on their preferences. That’s the complexity of where things are at right now.”

He also feels that the general public has a way to go in terms of understanding the necessity of an intelligent control system in the background – it’s not simply a case of telling Google to turn on all the lights in your house, with any infrastructure backing it up.

“It’ll be one of those economies of scale things. I think it’s going to grow and grow as more people start to use it, more products come out and more ecosystems get developed that work with those devices.”

Interestingly, Dee feels that of the innovations that may be coming down the line we are likely to see them turning up in cars and vehicles before our houses.

“About ten years ago I wrote an article ‘Why isn’t my home as smart as my car?’ and it looked at things like movement sensors, etc. We didn’t have that stuff in the house but cars were ahead of the game. So I think we’ll see some of the lead coming from there and it may well be the driving force behind future developments.”