Can a House Know Too Much?Advances in home automation systems are impressive, but be sensitive to the perceptions of home buyers.

A few years ago I was script consultant for a movie called “Futurehome,” which (thankfully for the home automation industry) was never made. The script involved an average American family moving into an experimental home of the future packed with labor-saving devices and smart appliances.

Over the course of the story, the family grew lazy and unappealing. Eventually the house, which seemed smarter than the entire family combined, turned on its owners. Each met doom in some awful domestic accident, including one gory demise involving the unwitting housewife and a murderous food processor.

Far-fetched, of course, but Hollywood liked the story because it played on people's inherent mistrust of technology that either a.) knows too much about you, or b.) seems to have an agenda of its own. While malevolent kitchen appliances aren't on the horizon, some emerging features of the digital home may inadvertently cross the line and become overly assertive. Builders and designers need to be aware.

An early concern, for example, may have to do with surveillance systems. It's now relatively inexpensive to dot a home with tiny video cameras and wire them to the Internet. Similarly, doors, windows, cabinets, and drawers can be equipped with sensors that report their status via Web-enabled software.

All of this is valuable—unless you're the person under surveillance. I saw an example of the technology in action at Microsoft's Home of the Future in Redmond, Wash. The experimental home has a central video display that updates every family member's whereabouts via the global positioning system in their phones.

The system also monitors Grandma's apartment, noting whether she's made her coffee in the morning or opened the front door to pick up the newspaper. If she hasn't, the system issues an alert: Check on Grandma. A laudable idea, but some grandmothers might be annoyed.

In addition to surveillance systems, there's a maturing category of home automation software that basically has a mind of its own. A decade ago, when my home ran on a power-line controller, one living room lamp liked to turn off at random times. I knew, of course, that some artifact in the electrical supply was dousing the light, but my wife never quite shook the suspicion that there was some reason the house wanted the lamp off in the early evening.

Michael Rogers is MSNBC's “Practical Futurist” and “Futurist in Residence” at the New York Times. He is a leading expert on the impact of technology on business and society, as well as a journalist, novelist, and frequent speaker.

These days, that might actually be the case. One application of home automation is energy conservation. A classic example is the home that knows not to run the washer and dryer until power consumption drops at night. Some utility companies already offer discounts to commercial customers who automatically use less power during peak load hours.

In an energy-constrained world, it's not impossible to imagine a whole-home control system that might gently chide the owner for leaving too many lights on, or for setting the air-conditioning at an unreasonable chill. Another annoying technological intervention? Perhaps. On the other hand, if it's saving both money and the environment, many home buyers may decide that in this case, it pays to listen to your house.