Beautiful and Smart

Smart home tech that promises beautiful home aesthetics as well as improved home function and health is coming.

Sara Nabil, PhD candidate at Newcastle University, has been working with the Open Lab and NORTH Lab teams "to create new types of interactive living objects that can be used in interior designs." Writing for The Conversation, republished by Fast Company, she explains, "We use thermochromic fabric which changes color, SMA wires which move and crumple, and e-textiles for seamless sensing."

Many homes are already smart. Research from Statista predicts that by the end of 2019, more than 45 million smart home devices will be installed in U.S. homes, and analysts predict that the smart home devices industry will reach $107.4 billion by 2023 globally. One in four people in Britain own one or more smart home devices, such as smart speakers, thermostats and smart security, and the UK government has begun investing money in teaching elderly and disabled people how to use smart tech in their homes.