The Disney Channel original movie "Smart House," about a family that moves into a "house of the future" run by a built-in virtual assistant named Pat, was way ahead of its time.
When it came out almost two decades ago, the world was still trying to figure out how to address the Y2K bug, and people had few of the technologies in their houses that we use today. There were no smart devices (let alone smartphones), dial-up modems were the norm, and candy-colored Apple desktop computers were all the rage.
The fictitious "Smart House" was a little far-fetched, sure, but it did get some things right.
Here are the technologies from the 1999 movie "Smart House" that we have now, almost 20 years later:
The centerpiece of "Smart House," and today's smart homes, is an AI-powered smart assistant that learns more about its owners over time.
Pat also pricked your finger to learn your entire medical history and figured out your diet based on your breath, so she knew a little too much.
In "Smart House," the family relied on voice-powered smart assistant to delegate tasks — which is almost exactly how it works today.
This is the overarching similarity, of course. Pat, voiced by Katey Segal, is a smart assistant like Alexa or Google Home. A notable difference is that the house in the movie is run by a control room and a circuit board instead of a speaker or system of speakers. And by the end of the movie, Pat could appear as a hologram; thankfully, Alexa and Siri can't sneak up on us in the same way.
Both "Smart House" and today's smart-home devices support voice commands for controlling the temperature in your home.
When asked "Pat, what's the current temperature, please?" Pat responded, "Climate control on target at 72.5 degrees."
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