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TIME MAGAZINE, JUNE 4, 2001, VOL.157 NO.22
This New Home
What's it like living in a wired home? One Singapore couple is finding that gadgets are great but it's still nice to feel the fruit
By MICHELLE LEVANDER Singapore
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Peter Steinhauer for TIME.
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The Tangs can use the wireless keyboard to surf the Net (as Ashley is doing) -- or change the thermostat.
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I open the Tang family's refrigerator and see three Tiger beers inside. Why, I wonder, are 36 beers listed on the automated scanning device, which is designed to beam their grocery inventory to a local store? The Tangs—living guinea pigs in a prototype Internet home sponsored and heavily promoted by the Singaporean government—offer a sheepish explanation. Shortly before I arrived at their model apartment, they ran a bunch of grocery items through the scanner to make it look like they use it all the time. Eager to accommodate, they did so at the urging of the pair of government minders who watch us from the next room. Raymond Tang confesses that he stuck a box of chicken-flavored crackers into the fridge the other day, without scanning it in at all. "It's a bit tedious to use," concedes his wife Ashley.
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PHOTO GALLERY |
From the outside, it looks like an ordinary house in the heart of the English countryside.
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Our Interactive World, an hour-long special hosted by CNN's Michael Holmes and Tumi Makgabo, featuring luminaries from the world of information technology
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Ashley and Raymond are doing their best to put a good face on living in a wired home. But after spending a morning with this down-to-earth couple—Ashley, 28, is in sales and Raymond, 30, is a civil engineer—I've learned more about how average people might live in high-tech homes than I ever expected. Not surprisingly, perhaps, many of the home's most touted interactive features don't work as seamlessly as promised. And so, these time-pressed professionals take advantage of the modern conveniences that make their lives easier and totally ignore the gee-whiz gimmicks that don't.
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The Tangs—newlyweds who married on Jan. 1, 2000—moved into their home eight months ago. Cisco Systems, which is participating in this and other Internet home projects around the globe, says they were the first people in the world to actually live in one. Fittingly, they decorated their futuristic flat in whites, creams and light pine to achieve, according to Raymond, "something a bit Zen." Both love the living-room entertainment center. They watch videos downloaded via a broadband Internet connection on a 42-in. (107-cm) flat-panel plasma screen, and use a wireless keyboard to operate the remote, surf the Net and dim the lights to a romantic, theater glow. Raymond reads the local paper online so he doesn't have to pay for a subscription to the print version.
But they are resistant to some options. Ashley still goes out to shop: she wants to touch the fruit in the market herself. When she is in a rush, she sends Raymond a short message via cell phone saying what she'd like him to pick up. She refuses to use the virtual Post-it note system on the home's portal—which is accessed only via the computer (a similar product features prominently in the plans of many appliance makers). The first and last time the Tangs tried their home videoconferencing equipment was during the crowded press conference held to unveil their apartment last October. "In the future, if the culture of working from home sets in, then this will be very useful," Ashley says with a smile. For now, her boss wants to see her in the office every day and friends don't have the same communications gear at home. "You need the other person who wants to communicate with you," Raymond says.
The couple has never attempted to download music onto the free MP3 players provided by one of the home's many sponsors, or to book doctors' appointments or restaurant reservations online over a special neighborhood portal (few local businesses participate, and it's not that hard to pick up the phone). They had to remove the hallway camera meant to monitor their security remotely, after neighbors in their apartment block complained about being filmed without their consent. And they have had terrible luck trying to switch on their home air-conditioning over the Net before leaving the office. The feature was blocked by their companies' firewalls. Otherwise, it would have been a nice touch, as would the digital video cameras that could allow Raymond to beam up his wife's image over the Internet while on one of his frequent business trips. Raymond has never tried to tackle that complicated system, either.
The Tangs say they try more of their home's snazzy features when guests drop by than when they are on their own—which gets at another downside of living in a futuristic home. "Since the official launch, we've spent every weekend entertaining," Raymond says with a sigh. "I'm tired of showing the demo."
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