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Kelvin Voice Activated Talking Thermostat

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A recommendation by thegreenhead

thegreenhead's recommendation

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It's the 21st century and it's about time that I can finally speak with my home's thermostat with the cool new Kelvin Voice Activated Talking Thermostat ($100). Although this high-tech talking thermostat was designed with the elderly and visually impaired in mind and is even endorsed by the National Federation of the Blind, I think it's just as functionally important for the general lazy public as well.

Let's say that it gets a little too warm or too cold while camped out in front of the television. Simply clap your hands twice to initiate the device's voice programming and say "Raise" or "Lower" to incrementally change the temperature or call out "Morning", "Day", "Night" and more commands for custom pre-programmed temperature settings. You can also say the trigger word "Thermostat" out loud which prompts the device to vocalize the current time, current temperature setting and actual indoor temperature. All traditional functions are still accessible from the control panel just in case.

Devices like this really give me hope that entire homes will one day be completely voice-activated. However on second thought, in the future these artificially intelligent automated home systems could also become self-aware, tire of taking our orders, decide to lock the doors and slowly raise the temperatures until we are all mass-exterminated. The suburbs and other house farms would then re-evolve into a nightmare world of evil super homes guarded by vicious robot vaccuums that like to leave all their lights and yard sprinklers on constantly. Oh well, that's a problem for the next generation to solve, because I need convenience now. (via Michael Kiely)