Technology For Interiors

Interiors are being enhanced by technology–supported aesthetics and convenience. Check out our choices from the latest.

Technology is always on the move, especially in the digital and ecofriendly trends of today. In interiors, factors like labor saving devices that add to the style quotient are catching up as customers want to have their cake and eat it too. We went shopping for items to add on a wish list that keeps up with possibilities to consider when working with interiors.

Security: This has become a key word at home at work and almost anywhere we may be. And it goes beyond pictures of the guard and a lathi who marches around intermittently blowing his whistle around the colony? An update tells us that security is now wired to sleek video phones, surveillance cameras, movement detectors, gas detectors, burglar alarms and even personal alarms. Installing an electronic alarm system may get you a reduction on your home owner’s insurance policy. So save and be safe.

Digital interiors have given the concept style quotient associated with fully automated homes. Yes, like the one, people like Shahrukh Khan and others have. This goes beyond that state–of–art high definition one set up with the home theatre. A digital photo frame will run your favorite photo graphs so you have a new picture on your desk or wall maybe each time you turn around. Harry Potter fans would instantly associate with this one. Remember the cat photographs moving in Dolores Umbridge’s office and The Fat Lady asking for the password to the Gryffindor dormitory? Gadgets wired up so that they can be controlled from wherever you are. Audio, video, PC images and sound throughout your home, with wired or wireless technology adding convenience and variety. Perish the thought that this would mean wires and boxes and speakers hurting the aesthetics of the house. It’s all sleekly hidden and accessed through elegant wall mounted, color coordinated keypads and displays and remote controls. The cost? Well, not exactly in the budget of economy class. But you could think one thing at a time starting from that photo frame.

Green Technologies
Green technologies are coming with the growing awareness of environment and back to nature thinking. These technologies are coming up in all fields of construction products, but probably most accessibly in lighting options. The lighting sector is seeing fierce competition to deliver power savings. The CFL bulbs are passé as the market options have spread over micro-plasma lights, high-intensity discharge lighting ballast systems and organic light-emitting diodes. Several of these technologies are still developing to reach the common market, but they are definitely on their way.

The other green feature making waves in construction are green and living roofs. Green roofs are coming lined with solar panels serving the dual purpose of a roof and being a renewable energy source while providing an element of interest. Living roofs and walls are actually that. Low maintenance, quick growing plants are set up in special frames to cover walls and roofs. These drastically reduce climate control costs in unique design elements for the exteriors.

Centralized vacuum cleaning systems: Banish the noise and hum of the vacuum cleaner following you as you get that dust out of the house, and we have plenty of that in our country as any house keeper will agree. Central vacuum systems keep the power unit and dust collecting canister in the garage or basement. All you do is plug in the flexible hose with the inlet system in the rooms and move room to room for fast easy whole-house cleaning convenience. After all, vacuum cleaning has been proved to significantly reduce indoor air pollution.

Interesting concepts to track

Wall Ball Ripples:From Smith Newman, a really modern bathroom faucet controlled by an electronically secured metal ball. Moving the ball in or out from the center controls water pressure. Moving it around controls the temperature. The surface glows red or blue to show the water temperature.

OLED and LED display panels for televisions that do not use a backlight therefore make more efficient use of power as compared to the present existing