The future of the home

Matt Boffey Founder & MD, London Strategy Unit

@LSUSocial

We asked our network: How will technology change

the way we behave in the home of the future?

They said: it wouldn’t.

Technology doesn’t drive behavioural change.

Entrepreneurs and venture capitalists back

technologies that respond to existing needs.

So, in the home the future, which human behaviours will tech

companies capitalise on?

behaviours and ways technology will respond to them in the home of the future.

13

We’re lonely and isolated

1 million older people in the UK regularly go a month without speaking to anyone.

CNA Speaking Exchange pairs language learners with elderly Americans

Sympathetic Housebots Rather than waiting for the grandchildren to call, we’ll enjoy interacting with playful, AI-enabled housebots who’ll know our personalities, likes and behaviours.

We’re living for longer

Thanks to advances in medicine, the elderly are becoming the majority demographic in

the developed world.

In Japan, adult nappies outsell nappies for children

Wearable Soft Robotics The home of the future won’t have stairlifts or accessible baths for elderly residents - wearable exoskeletons will enable mobility inside and outside the home.

We live in an economy of extremes

Britain’s rich are 64% richer than before the recession, while

the poorest are 57% poorer.

Of all major supermarkets, only Lidl, Aldi and Waitrose grew in sales last year

or Haute

Designer food We’ll either prepare haute cuisine easily thanks to Chef Watson, or rely on basic and cheap satisfaction from nutritional aids like Soylent. But we won’t be spending big on a new kitchen.

We want experiences, not things

78% of Millennials would rather spend money on a valuable experience than

a desirable item.

‘To travel more’ tops more bucket lists than anything else

Virtual rooms We’ll use Virtual Reality to create the home office or gamesroom of our dreams, rather than acquiring expensive, mass-produced, and hard to move furniture.

We prefer sharing over ownership

The UK sharing economy is valued at £22.4 billion, with cars, holiday homes and DIY

equipment the most shared items.

AirBnB: 350,000 hosts; 25 million visits

Community-owned driverless cars We’ll live in communities that share fleets of driverless cars and delivery vehicles rather than having flash cars as personal status symbols.

We want to work flexibly and independently

Online work, freelancing or working in the ‘gigging economy’ is now seen as a highly

attractive career option by 87% of students.

The explosion in freelancing platforms

Housing software brands As ‘gigging workers’ find it hard to make regular rent payments, housing associations need to be more like financial ‘software’ brands, and less like fixed ‘hardware’ providers.

We’re super-mobile and super-urban

Today, more people than ever before live in urban centres - and by 2030, 92.2% of the

UK population will live in a city.

AAAll this for just £1,000 cpm

Hypercommuting As cities fill up, the rich will ‘hypercommute’ between ideal homes and urban workplaces. But poorer workers - working flexibly and by the hour - will travel constantly and in short bursts. Nobody will do the traditional 9-to-5.

We want everything now

46% of millennials would rather pay more for instant delivery than wait.

AA The Amazon ‘dash’ button

On-demand furniture 3D printing will enable us to download and personalise a whole range of furnishings in minutes, so no more wasting the weekend on trips to out of town IKEAs.

We outsource memory and choice

A recent study revealed we have ‘Goldfish Memory Syndrome’ - a third of women

under 30 can’t remember their own phone number or recall the birthdays of three

close relatives.

AANetflix thinks it knows what you’ll like…

Predictive analytics powered by drones Predictive analytics will spot our typical patterns of behaviour and anticipate when we’ll want a bath running, or a fresh pint of milk and some Nurofen delivered by drone. So no more emergency trips to the corner shop.

We prefer communities of interest

We’re stuck in “filter bubbles” - search engines shield us from information which

they think will be irrelevant (even if they’re serendipitously interesting).

AAFacebook offers you more of the same based on what you ‘like’

Digital gated communities We’ll see a rise in ‘communes’ and ‘gated communities’ - places created to suit people based on shared digital and physical preferences.

We’re platform dependent

Apple has nearly 800 million iTunes accounts. In June of 2013, iTunes had 575 million accounts. That’s a growth rate of

40% in one year on a very mature product.

AAApple’s ‘move to iOS’ app will allow frictionless platform-switching

Suites of services Housing brands of the future will offer a family of products - both services and properties - not just one-off housing units.

We’re into 3 ways of paying

The 3 most common business models of the internet age are:

1. Pay as you go / on-demand 2. Free (but ad-funded)

3. Subscription

AA1. Now TV 2. Gmail 3. Spotify

Three payment models 1. Short-term rent options of six months or less. 2. Free to own housing that monetises your data. 3. Subscriptions to housing platforms that let you move between properties globally.

We’re short-termist in relationships

450 million profiles are rated every day on Tinder.

AAFancy a date? Just swipe right.

Sexbots We’ll have in-home, storable sexbots for instant gratification rather than long-term lovers or guilty one-night stands.

Recap: the tech attracting most investment

1. AI & robotics

2. Disruptive business models

3. Big data & predictive analysis

For more information please contact: Matt Boffey Founder & Managing Director matt@londonstrategyunit.com www.londonstrategyunit.com