This photograph is part of a batch taken to show Laing Homes 'Internet Home'. Earlier in 1999 they had built a show home on the Brandon Gate development at Nascot Wood in Watford, in collaboration with North Home Counties and Cisco Systems, an American Internet network supplier. The house was operated by a webpad and had 72 sockets providing a connection for telephone and Internet, four Compaq PCs, four ISDN lines, four web cameras and a video conferencing system. The technology within the house enabled the residents to see who was at the front door via a webcam, adjust the lighting and heating from any location, control power points around the house, use a hand held scanner to monitor food and drink consumption and work from home using the Internet PC. A replica of the house was built at the Ideal Home Exhibition in the year 2000.
This image was catalogued as part of the Breaking New Ground Project in partnership with the John Laing Charitable Trust in 2019-20.
This is part of the Series: JLP01/11 John Laing Photographic Collection Colour Negatives and Contact Sheets; within the Collection: JLP01 John Laing Photographic Collection
© Historic England Archive. John Laing Photographic Collection
Science And Technology
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