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High-tech furniture: A smart choice  

Roombots

With the advancement in the home automation industry, new concepts are emerging rapidly, leading us towards smart devices, smart technology and even smart furniture. The smart furniture will not only save time and labor in assembling, but also shall give us the liberty to convert them into space saving structures.

That will charge your phone wirelessly

Asus, HTC, Samsung, Blackberry, Nokia, Sony, Microsoft, LG electronics, Huawei and more than 150 other members formed the Wireless Power Consortium in 2008, to develop a global standard for inductive charging technology. They created Qi (pronounced as ‘chee’) as an interface standard for inductive electrical power transfer. The Qi system consists of a power transmission pad and the portable device has the compatible receiver. The portable device is placed on top of the power transmission pad and it gets charged with the help of resonant inductive coupling.

Ikea’s ‘Smart Home’ line furniture will be equipped with “charging pads” using the Qi charging technology. The devices compatible with this technology will get charged by simply placing them over the “charging pads” on the furniture. Initially, Ikea will launch desks, bedside tables and lamps in their Smart Home line of furniture.

Belgian origin designer Carl De Smet is experimenting with a smart material to develop self-assembling furniture. Inspired from the space antenna technology Smet is using Shape Memory Polyurethane (SMP), which when given a specific amount of heat expands into a particular shape.  His idea was to eliminate the assembling from the furniture; flat-pack furniture is easy to carry.

Anybody could carry this small package anywhere and just plug it in to do the assembling on its own.  The expansion is triggered at 70 degree centigrade so that the material does not assemble on its own in transportation. The packaging and the material is the same thing, this unique feature would make it easy to transport and will reduce the transportation cost tremendously. Carl is researching on more possibilities that this material could be used for.

Roombots

Roombots

Furniture that reconfigures, moves and self assemble will be seen around soon! Using a number of modular robots called Roombots, self-assembling furniture is being developed. These small robots will crawl and attach to one another and take the shape of a chair, stool or a table. Further, they will have the ability to transform from one form of furniture into another, like a stool could transform itself into a table, a number of chairs into a sofa etc.

The Swiss NCCR in Robotics funds the project. These Roombots are made of a number of robotic modules that can attach and detach. When not in use these Roombots will change themselves into space saving, structures like a box or a wall.

Smart Chair

A group of hospitals and clinics in the US will get a ‘smart chair’ in their waiting rooms. A person sitting on the chair will be able to take his vital statistics and see them on a screen and will be able to take a print out. The chair has several sensors, scale, thermometer, blood pressure cuff, antibacterial wipes, a screen and a printer. Also known as the Vitals Chair, it is designed by the kiosk manufacturing company Vecna. It will not only save time but will also provide the user an insight into their vital stats.

 Transformable Couch Table

Here is another smart piece of furniture that can save you money and space. Instead of buying a coffee table and a dining table separately, you can buy this beautifully crafted transformable couch table. These transformable couch tables use gas lifters to change their height. Not only they are elegant in design but also these assemble quite quickly. Ozzio from Italy has come up with a new line of these transformable tables.

The high-tech furniture will pave its path into our homes in the coming time. Irresistible high fashion furniture will enter our smart homes, to save us assembling time, money and space.

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