You Can Now Control Your Smart Home Using Zelda Ocarina Tunes

Present Day

When I was much younger, I remember reading a science magazine that was located in the magazine aisle of a grocery store. Inside of this magazine contained a list of predictions for our future over the course of 50 years. One of those predictions happened to be of smart homes. Which is why, two decades later, I’m glad to see that future prediction turning into a reality.

Though, what the magazine didn’t predict about smart homes was the possibility of using music as a means of controlling said home. Thanks to YouTuber Sufficiently Advanced, however, you need not worry. Smart homes can now be controlled by playing – get this – tunes from the famous video game Zelda: Ocarina of Time! Just like in the game, he would play a simple tune using an ocarina and, just like that, his home (and devices) respond accordingly.

How did he achieve this? By using a Raspberry-Pi based home automation system, no less! He built it himself, whereby he’s since rigged his lights, air conditioning, and even car (or at least his car keys) to respond to specific ocarina tunes. It’s the smart home that every Zelda fanatic has ever dreamed of when they first saw Link use an ocarina to get past certain obstacles. Anyone else have the urge to play Breath of the Wild now?

Near Future

Five to ten years from now, smart appliances everywhere will have reached the mainstream. Every home sold will be equipped with devices that are connected to the Internet of Things (IoT). Whether they’re controlled via voice, gesture, or by other means, these devices will become just as deeply ingrained in our daily lives as smartphones are today.

The ability to use music, especially, will be explored and experimented with as these technologies continue advancing. Today, one YouTuber figured out how to use music from a popular video game in order to control their home. How might others begin using music once the resources needed to achieve this become all the more inexpensive and open source to the general public?

FAR FUTURE

Thirty to fifty years from now, controlling anything by voice, gesture, or music will seem primitive. By this time, the most popular method of controlling devices – whether it’s typing an article, opening the shades by your window, or even sending an email – will be via the mind. Thanks to the advancements in brain-to-brain communications, we’ve already developed bionic limbs that can be controlled by a person’s thoughts alone.

Eventually, nearly every device we see and touch will have the ability of being manipulated using a brain-computer interface. And if you think that’s wild, communication in and of itself could potentially enter this realm as well. Instead of verbal communication, or communication via text from a smartphone, people will begin transferring thoughts with one another. In fact, researchers have already successfully achieved “techno-telepathy,” with more successful research likely to follow suit.

Photo Credit: Sufficiently Advanced