I visited a friend's family this weekend, and noticed something strange. They've got their whole house set up to be remote controlled - well, at least as far as that can be taken. Their lights are remote controlled, their electricity can be turned on and off just by calling the house from any phone, cell or regular. The internet connection in the house is by wireless router, so that the notebooks and laptops can be connected wherever they are, and it's a megabit line, at that. Doesn't get much better than that.

All this is, of course, in my book insanely cool. There a just a few little troubles, and they create some strange situations.

For example, the setup in the living room is quite complicated, with 2 dvd-players, surround sound, a flat screen tv, and remote controlled lights, with ambient light. Okay, so you have 5 remotes for that area, and by accident, the lights and the TV are on the same frequency. I turned on the TV there - and the lights went out. I waited a while, and the lights flickered a bit, and then they went back on, luckily. Then I wanted to turn them down a little, and the sound was gone from the local screening of Alien vs. Predator. I then turned the sound up again, and the lights then followed. Bright lights, and a loud movie.

Now, this was all fixed when my friend returned, and she showed me the correct position to stand in so as to only hit the tv with the remote. Okay then...

Don't get me wrong here, I love all this. And whenever there are troubles like these, I laugh my proverbial behind off, and wonder a bit if it's technology working for us, or the other way around. You have to think far ahead to get a remote controlled house, it seems, and even down to knowing the frequency of your remotes, but I guess that's the price one has to pay - so to speak.

Article submitted via Creative Reporter

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