’70s Smart Home Tech Proves Alexa and Google Home Are Nothing New

It’s easy to assume that current smart home systems, like Amazon Echo and Google Home, are new ideas—or at the very least new technology. That’s because most of us had never used anything like them until recently. But, as Lazy Game Reviews’ Clint Basinger demonstrates in his Oddware video, Echo-esque systems have been around since the ‘70s.

Clint reviews two products in his video: the ’70s X-10 Powerhouse and the ’90s Hal 2000. Both are designed to do what modern smart home systems do: control your various home devices from a central location. The X-10 Powerhouse originally did this over your home’s power lines from a central control unit, but then later added MS-DOS support so it could be controlled by a PC.

The software, which definitely looks like the epitome of a DOS program, lets the user add different devices to a list. Then, those devices can be turned off or on manually, dimmed, or set to timers. But, this still works over the power lines, and the system is definitely glitchy and far from secure.

The Hal 2000 takes this a step further, getting remarkably close to what Amazon Echo and Google Home do now, by adding voice control. The software has all of the trademarks of the ’90s, and an included microphone can be used to issue voice commands. Surprisingly, this seems to actually work, and it just goes to show that everything old is new again.