Welcome to the Bedroom of the Future

In sci-fi movies, people of the future live in impossibly futuristic houses full of screens and robots and dreams. We see them wake up as an automatic curtain opens, and they saunter over to a closet where their clothes move on a conveyor belt. It's a real world facsimile of a Jetsons episode. But it's not the real world.

Nobody really knows what the future will look like. As far as the bedroom is concerned, however, people love to fantasize. Based on the results of a study funded by bed manufacturers, a design student mocked up one idea for the bedroom of the future that included everything from medical scanning equipment built into the bed to interactive holograms that acted as a personal assistant. While it's fun to imagine how you may one day check the weather on your interactive window or stare up at pictures of galaxies from your augmented reality-enabled bed, would these features actually be useful? And would you even want to clutter your sleep space with them?

At the Gizmodo Home of the Future, which opens on May 17 in New York City, we're attempting to reconcile the way we hope to live with the way we will live. Well, in a sense, designers and inventors are always trying to reconcile those two things. Sometimes the technology will exist to do something incredible, like create a holographic personal assistant, but practical reality won't allow it. Maybe it's too expensive, or it's not quite advanced enough to work properly, or people wouldn't actually use it—or all of the above. True innovators find a space between fantasy and reality.


Welcome to the Bedroom of the Future

In the bedroom of the near future, you're going to see improvements in a lot of technology that you already recognize, as well as the introduction of some gadgets you never knew you needed. Take the bed itself. In the Gizmodo Home of the Future, we're featuring a minimalist frame from CB2 with a Tuft and Needle mattress that combines the best features of traditional spring mattresses with more modern memory foam. We don't have a holographic space show, but a mountable speaker set up from Harmon Kardon paired with the classically styled Tivoli Audio Hi-Fi system will provide plenty of ambiance.

Then there are the smaller things: the pieces of technology that go in drawers, on the floor, and on top of furniture. In the future, these gadgets will do what they've always done, but they'll also do so much more. The Tivoli clock-radio of the future, for example, includes a clock and a radio but also connects to your smartphone to offer a whole new menu of features. The Withings scale of the future will tell you how much you weigh—but can also measure everything from your body composition to the purity of the air you're breathing.

That's just to name a few of the things you'll find in the Gizmodo Home of the Future. The experience extends beyond the bedroom, of course, to a kitchen full of innovative tools, a living room that redefines entertainment, and an office that's supercharged for productivity. If you happen to be in SoHo between May 17 and May 21, you can see and even touch all of these life-changing technologies. Robots and holograms are welcome, too.

Welcome to the Bedroom of the Future

The Basics



Hours: 11:00 am to late. Come work in the Home of the Future—stop by to sit on our snazzy furniture and use our superfast WiFi. Plus, we'll be hosting events every night—check back for more information on how to RSVP.

Cost: Free!

