Next-Gen Home Features Connected Bed, Decade Actors

This year's next-gen home, presented by Lifeware, is a bit different than previous houses at CEDIA Expo and last year's CES.

When you walk into the house, you're greeted by a housewife dressed in '50s clothes. The counters are lined with items that look straight out of "Lassie" -- and at one point, the housewife even heads over to her HP TouchSmart PC to read an email that her son Timmy has fallen into a well.

Throughout the house, each room is a different decade, with character actors demonstrating the technology and how they use it.

In the great room, there's "Chad," the 1960s bachelor waiting for his girlfriend to come over. In the 1970s gaming room, a guy straight out of "That '70s Show" talks about media center extenders like his Xbox 360, sitting next to an Atari 2600.

In the '80s home office, "Bob Gates" talks about his HP Blackbird system, a computer he got "from his cousin." The room is complete with a photo of Ronald Reagan hanging on the wall.

And in the bedroom of today, a woman with her leg in a cast demonstrates the newest feature of the house -- integraton with the Starry Night bed from Leggett & Platt.

The bed, which connects to Microsoft's Windows Vista, can be controlled by remote, tilting up and down on command. It has a "snoring sensor" that will adjust the bed when it detects heavy vibrations from snoring, has heating and cooling control, and even stores sleep profiles.

The bed can even be adjusted using a "romance" setting, which turns down the lights, closes the shades and starts some music.

The setting "articulates the bed to a position that is more condusive to romance," says Exceptional Innovation's vice president of marketing Mike Seamons.

What the system doesn't do, however, is send an email or text message to an out-of-town spouse when the weight in the bed exceeds that of one person.

Pricing for the bed is between $20,000 and $50,000. Panasonic is displaying an advanced version, with Lifemedia built in, in their booth.



CE Pro's Julie Jacobson contributed to this story.