"The Jetsons" Comes True: Inside the Futuristic Smart Home
The 1960s animated sitcom The Jetsons depicted what life could look like for the typical family of the 21st century. Three-dimensional televisions and video teleconferencing allowed for lifelike remote communications, while robotic assistants and autonomous appliances took care of the manual household chores. The futuristic ideas were wildly creative but largely considered nonsensical at the time.
Five decades later, The Jetsons' revolutionary ideas have actually become reality. Universal internet connectivity, improved processing, and mass-market affordability have led to a new era of devices for the "smart home", which would make the show's writers proud.
In the video above, Motley Fool Explorer advisor Simon Erickson brings you directly inside the modern Smart Home. He takes a closer look at Panasonic's (NASDAQOTH: PCRFY) most innovative home devices featured at this year's South by Southwest ("SXSW") conference -- which include digital wall art, a next-generation washing machine, and a cloud-connected food concierge. He also explains where the smart-home market currently stands and what it could mean for investors.
Panasonic is not alone in its interest in the smart home. Amazonhas already sold more than 8 million Echo digital assistants, and Alphabetis heavily marketing its Google Nest to optimize energy efficiency.
We're keeping a very close eye on developments in this space and the impact it will have on broader industries. In March, Simon's Motley Fool Explorer team analyzed the Internet of Things, which describes the nearly 20 billion internet-connected devices already beaming data into the cloud all around the world.
Our complete coverage of this year's SXSW conference, including our top three technology predictions, is available here.
A full transcript can be found below.
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Simon Erickson:Hi everyone, Simon Erickson here at South by Southwest 2017. We're here at the Panasonic House where their Catapult Team is working on new devices for the smart home. Now, they don't actually consider the devices as much as they consider the experience that it's providing for their customers.
Their ambient-media player is going up on walls as a replacement to pictures that can automatically change the music or video that it's showing to you. They have a clothing care system that will customize the shampoo and odors that we'll use to wash and rinse your favorite clothes. They have a dietary management system that can prepare food for people with special dietary needs. And they even have a smart sake cooler for a beverage of your choice at the end of the day.
Now, these devices are still very expensive, costing several thousands of dollars as they're clearly going after the early adopters in the market. But we could see smart devices such as these continue to gain adoption in the coming years of the smart home.
Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fools board of directors. Simon Erickson owns shares of Amazon. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), and Amazon. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.