Win the bedroom of the future #BedroomTech

I have had the honour of working with Betta Living in creating a bedroom of the future. Naturally it features a whole host of future tech as well as bits that you can actually get your hands on right now.

The Betta Living Bedroom of the Future has everything from an intelligent virtual bedroom mirror that will suggest what to wear, and monitoring systems that will automatically adapt your whole bedroom environment to your personal biotech readings, to 3D printed family portraits and self-designed 3D printed ornaments.

Betta Living’s virtual bedroom gives an insight into what the nation’s bedrooms will look like in just a few years’ time, as technology, household furniture, gadgets and accessories evolve.

Virtual Mirror (including Personal Stylist Functionality)

(1) Mirrored glass on wardrobe doors will be superseded by a virtual mirror, something digital agency Code Computerlove has already developed for retailers and that Betta Living believes will become commonplace in UK bedrooms within just a few years.

The intelligent interactive surface will not only display the contents of our wardrobe (that we can browse and virtually try on using gestural technology) but will cleverly act as our own personal style adviser – helping us to decide what to wear depending on our diary, the weather and what we’ve worn previously.

By micro tagging clothes we won’t even have to open the wardrobe door to decide what to wear – they will be displayed on the virtual mirror. Using gestural technology we can swipe through wardrobe items and try outfits on using images of our clothes superimposed on a life-size video of our bodies.

Select a skirt or pair of jeans and the virtual mirror will then suggest shoes, tops and accessories from your wardrobe that will not only look fabulous with it, but will also be suitable for that day’s weather and what you’re doing that day – if you have a lunch meeting or an evening out after work it will use this intelligence and advise accordingly.

And of course, if we don’t have that vital pair of shoes to match an outfit the intelligent virtual mirror will take you to an online shop where you can buy an item with just one click.

When it’s time to take physical garments out of the wardrobe, advances in storage systems will mean clothes will be easy to access – almost handed to you on a plate, like Betta Living’s soon to be launched infrared motion sensor rail.

Smart Windows

(2) Clear glass windowpanes and window dressings will become a thing of the past. The window in this futuristic bedroom is a transparent ‘smart window’, automated to the time of day and season or personal preferences. While the screen can be translucent (for those lucky enough to have a view), it can blackout, work as a virtual window blind, display a scene of your choice – think gorgeous snow scene or a beach shot from your holidays to enjoy year round – or be used as an interactive screen to watch TV, check the weather and even browse and update social media accounts.

Samsung’s Transparent Smart Window gives a sneaky peak into how this could work and may not even be that far away in the making.

Then take the bed itself

Foldaway beds are not only practical but allow for free-floating sleeping, and this next generation Betta Living bed could even use a clever cantilever mechanism to store the bed in the ceiling rather than a wall. At the touch of a button, the bed could elevate up into a spot lit surround, and then it’s gone.  (3)

Bedding will be hi-tech too and better for our health. The Fine Bedding Company hints at the fact that it will be taking its Smartfil temperature control synthetic duvets and pillows to the next level with built in technology. Duvets of the future will be connected to body monitoring systems, telling them to heat up if the body is getting too cold and thanks to an in-built cooling system it will cool the body down to prevent night sweats.

Pillows could incorporate the same light technology used in lamps to combat the symptoms of SAD. Pillows will light up gradually as you wake and include health-enhancing lighting.

Similarly, SleepNumber’s iLE mattress has temperature balancing technology and even offers personalised mattress contouring too – where you can adjust each side to your ideal firmness, comfort and support.

On top of these innovations, self-iron fabrics will mean the end of the onus task ironing duvet covers.

By the side of the bed, techies are currently working on the ultimate green smart beaker, an insulating and refrigerating mug that absorbs heat from the boiling hot beverage inside and saves this energy to be used later to keep the drink at the perfect drinking temperature. A thermometer shows the energy stored and what temperature the drink is at. (4)

Wearables In The Bedroom

For bedtime reading, watching TV, playing games or video-chat with friends, wearable technology like the new Oculas Rift (5) will not only eliminate the need for a screen but users can step into whatever world they want. Similarly, Google Glass, the Apple Watch and the Blocks modular watch could well all feature on our bedside tables sometime soon.

Audio wise…

In the multi-functioning bedroom of the future, everything will be connected to our phones/watches and app driven like Tivoli’s app Audio Albergo+ (6) that couples as a Bluetooth speaker system, alarm and radio.

Healthier Homes

The nation’s future bedrooms will be kitted out with home automation systems linked to health monitoring gadgets to optimise our wellbeing and create an environment (heat and light) suited to our exacting personal needs – even down body temperature.

While this trend has already begun, with products such as LightwaveRF (7) that controls everything from power sockets and light dimmers from smartphones, and Beddit’s (8) ultra thin film sensor, which connects wirelessly to your smartphone giving sleep analysis, such as sleep cycles, respiration, heart rate etc., Jawbone’s collaboration with Nest is another example of this trend. Jawbone’s UP24 wearable device detects and carefully monitors whether a person is asleep or awake, so once the band enters Sleep Mode, the thermostat will kick down to the owner’s ideal temperature and adjust to a warmer temperature when they wake – creating the optimum sleeping environment and ideal conditions for getting up.

If you can’t wait for the future – Honeywell’s evohome (9) enables you to schedule, zone and personalise your warmth and hot water wirelessly with its touch screen controller or by using its Total Comfort Connect app.

Advances in lighting will also deliver more health benefits and mood enhancing options than today, not stopping at a lightbox (10) but offering anti Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) benefits throughout the room.

Energy-bills will be substantially less too, as lighting becomes more energy-efficient, like with MegamanUK’s LED.

Fitness In A Box

The futuristic bedroom is all about being ‘transformative’, where even the smallest of spaces will not restrict activities. When homeowners want space to work out, they can elevate the bed and bring out a home gym like Domyos Training Box. It contains a weight lifting bar and selection of weights, a weight bench/cardio step and mat all in this tiny box. (11)

Futuristic Furniture and accessories

Tailor made is something already associated with fitted bedrooms, but 3D printing takes this further. Forget framed family portraits hanging on the wall, highly realistic 3D mini-me figurines of loved ones, like ones that can be created by imaker.com and Asda, will adorn bedroom shelves instead of 2D prints. But because anything can be scanned and designed, the bedroom of the future will be adorned with ornaments and accessories design by the homeowner – from stags heads and magical horses to homespun vases, whatever the trend 3D models can be created in just hours. (12)

Flooring will also be interchangeable at the flick of a switch. Forget having a single carpet or floor tile design, floors in the future will display graphics of choice – anything from images of textured fabrics through to disco-esque effects on the floor. Or why not put an image of a lovely lawn or under the sea scene to really bring the outdoors in?

Cleaning

And finally, no bedroom of the future would be complete without a robot! The iRobot Roomba 880 can be pre-set to vacuum whenever you want, while you sit back and let it do the work! It even recharges itself between cleaning and is super effective at its job. (13)

Barry Rourke said:
Our bedroom of the future is all about multi-functionality to make the most of space, fabulous design and making home comforts even more sophisticated.

As people flock to popular urban areas, domestic spaces are shrinking but in our transformative bedroom, even the smallest of spaces will not restrict the homeowners in the future.

Windows will adapt to whatever we want our view to be and interactive living surfaces will mean we have access to our lives and wardrobe in one clever screen.

Even the traditional bed will become tech driven and be linked to everything else in the room by clever sensors and smartphones. There are so many exciting things being developed our problem designing the bedroom of the future was what to leave out.

Win your own futuristic bedroom!

If all of that has served to whet your appetite for home tech then how about a chance to win some goodies worth around £1,500?

The awesome prize includes an iRobot vacuum cleaning robot, Tivoli Albergo+ clock radio, gym in a box, iMakr 3D mini-you creation, SAD light box, Beddit sleep sensor and Lightwave RF items.

Head over to the Betta Living Facebook page and enter their prize draw!