Perez Design Build Remodel Blog

• Laser Robot Vacuum - A robot that cleans your house is every homeowners’ dream, right?  There is actually a company called Neato Robotics taking things to a whole new level by adding a laser to their little robot vacuum. The robot vacuums of the past just wandered around your house sucking up everything in their path until they bumped into something. The laser allows the Neato robot vacuum to make a map of your house, from the couch to the front door, so it knows what it’s already cleaned and what still needs to be done. When it is done cleaning the little GPS inside of it will actually take it back to its home base

• Heated Driveway - By now you’ve probably heard of radiant heat flooring, which is basically a heated mat under your hardwood or tile that keeps your floor and your feet warm. Well now the ‘heated floor’ trend is taking itself outdoors and under our driveways. It’s like a driveway that shovels itself!

• Ethanol Fireplace - If you don’t have a chimney, your options up until now were either go with an electric fireplace or install a gas line, which involves putting holes in your wall and potentially unsightly pipe work climbing up your house. 
Well, now fireplaces are going mobile, freestanding in the middle of a room or popping out of a coffee table, as they use small tanks of ethanol or other biofuels.  The fuel is often made from beet, sugar cane, berries, etc. There’s a small reservoir tank that, depending on the size, will offer about eight hours of burn time. The other nice feature about them is that there are no harmful emissions. 


• Sun Tunnel - Not every dark room is conducive to a skylight. Now a sun tunnel can be added which is a flexible tube that can navigate rocky paths out to the light and deliver a small, round portal of natural light. Now you can bring light to closets, hallways, bathrooms and laundry rooms.

• Wireless Speakers in Can Lights - Can lights, small circular lights inset in the ceiling, add elegance to any room and let’s face it, ceiling speakers are awesome, but now, you can get them all rolled into one. There are companies that make wireless speakers and they install like a light bulb. You can program each system for two different zones, so you can listen to different music in different roo
    
• Zoned Entertainment (Music and TV) - Now you can have your entertainment travel with you around the home.  Basically now you start watching a show in one room and then continue watching it in another. 

On the music side, home-music systems now allow you to wirelessly connect the speakers all over the house and divide them into zones so you can play the same music throughout.


• Smart Grid Appliances - The entire house is getting interconnected, master-controlled and wireless — and now, not even your washing machine is safe! 

LG and other companies are increasingly offering smart grid appliances that you can control from your smartphone or tablet computer — or even remotely. You may not need to wash a load of laundry while you’re on vacation.  It also will allow you to monitor the energy usage of each appliance and diagnose problems with appliances from anywhere.

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