Ramaprasanna Chellamuthu, a Microsoft developer in Bangalore, lives alone at home but he never feels lonely. That's because, as he puts it in this entertaining video, "My home is my buddy." As a hobby, Chellamuthu set out to equip his house with a variety of robotics, augmented reality, and speech and image recognition devices. He called the project "buddyHome."
The house wakes him up in the morning and shows his calendar on a computer and projects a TV news show on the wall. An automated stirrer cooks his instant noodles on the stove. When he smiles while watching a cricket game on TV, the house offers to buy tickets, saying: "Can I have your credit card, please?" The house watches him even when he's eating: "You are eating a high fat diet!!" the house says when he's eating pizza. And when he can't get out of bed after the alarm clock goes off, a device holding a cup of water -- you knew this was coming -- pours it on his face.
If Bill Gates ever has problems with his smart home, he knows who to call.
Erico Guizzo is the digital product manager at IEEE Spectrum. He oversees the operation, integration, and new feature development for all digital properties and platforms, including the Spectrum website, newsletters, CMS, editorial workflow systems, and analytics and AI tools. He’s the cofounder of the IEEE Robots Guide, an award-winning interactive site about robotics. An IEEE Member, he is an electrical engineer by training and has a master’s degree in science writing from MIT.
