Unit 6, Lesson 6, ex.4 

When you’re not home, nagging little thoughts can start to crowd your mind. Did I turn the coffee maker off? Did I set the security alarm? Are the kids doing their homework or watching television?
With a smart home, you could quiet all of these worries with a quick trip online. When you’re home, the house takes care of you by playing your favourite song whenever you walk in or turning down the lights for a movie. Is it magic? No, it’s advanced technology. Smart homes connect all the devices in your home so they can communicate with each other and with you.
Anything in your home that uses electricity can be put on the home network. Whether you give that command by voice, remote control or computer, the home reacts.
Here are a few more examples of cool smart home tricks: Start heating the bedroom before you get out of bed so that it’s nice and warm when you get up. Turn on the coffee maker from bed. Feed your pets on a schedule with a preset amount of food. Program the television so that your children can watch only at certain times.
There are cameras that track your home outside. A video door phone provides more than a doorbell – you get a picture of who’s at the door. Motion sensors will send an alert when there’s movement around your house, and they can even tell the difference between pets and people. Door locks and garage doors can open automatically as your smartphone approaches. Door handles can open with scanned fingerprints or a four-digit code, no need to look for house keys.
Moreover, the most advanced garbage bins can monitor what you throw away and generate orders in online shops for replacement. Refrigerators that create dinner recipes based on the ingredients stored inside.
Smart homes obviously make life easier and more convenient. Whether you’re at work or on vacation, the smart home will send data on what’s going on.
Smart homes also provide some energy savings. The devices can go to “sleep” and wake up when commands are given. Lights are automatically turned off when a person leaves the room, and rooms can be heated or cooled based on who’s there at any given moment.
New technology promises great advantages for an elderly person living alone. Smart homes could remind the owner when it was time to take medicine, contact the hospital if they fell or feel bad and track how much the person was eating.
A smart home probably sounds like a nightmare to those people not comfortable with computers as sometimes you may find them difficult to operate.
Of course, there’s also the question of whether you need all this technology. Is our society really so lazy that we can’t switch on the lights? It’s an interesting argument, but smart homes are coming.

Socratic Questioning Pprompts

Which of these ideas haven't been used / have been used in the text of the exercise 4(187)?

Which of them do you agree/disagree? Write your comments here below. You should log in to post your comments.