At a winter day in 1989 the Japanese sent chills down the spine of the world of tech. They presented a house, located in one of Tokyo’s most fashionable neighbourhood, which was able to think, sense and act on its own. It linked millions of microprocessors in consumer appliances, business machines and telecommunication networks into a giant cooperative web.

The house would know when to open the windows, air-condition the room and water the plants. It would flush the toilet, flip the faucet and air-dry your hands. When the phone rang, it muted the stereo. If the homeowner wanted to cook a fancy meal, it would present a recipe and instruction on a kitchen monitor while setting the correct oven temperature. All without manual human interaction.
The Japanese did it again. With this first “smart house”, the Japanese called it the Tron House, they put the Rest of the World in their place when it comes to creativity and innovation in the field of tech.

Although, some less visionary tech consultants, like Gib Hoxie, weren’t impressed at all, commenting that: “The TRON house looks to me like an electronic whiz kid’s dream. (…) consumers are already disgruntled with digital videocassette recorders and microwave ovens. They find dials easier to use and are moving toward them again. (…) TRON isn’t addressing that at all. They say, ‘Let’s pull all of this together in a universal digital interface.’ That’s a nightmare to me. It means I can’t run anything in my house (…). Tron will be of no lasting significance”

More visionary tech gurus, like Bill Gates, certainly did not subscribe to Hoxies