Imagine controlling every single device in your home that has an on-off switch, from your lights to your Blu Ray player, all from your iPhone or iPod touch.
That is just one of the seemingly futuristic technologies that are actually available today and on display at the SoHo Mews apartment complex. Several spaces at the building have been taken over by Hearst Magazine and remodeled by A-list decorators.
The House Beautiful townhouse is the one run on the Savant home automation setup. Based entirely on Apple's Macintosh operating system, it has touch panels throughout the home, even though everything can be done via an iPhone, whether you're on the couch or halfway around the world.
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Technology
An interactive pool table and iPhone controlled chandeliers are just a few Adam Balkin has more on the high tech toys currently on display at a set of futuristic homes in SoHo.
 
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"We call it Rosie on the Road so you can manage your home remotely, so every bit of control you have in your house you have that same control through your iPhone over Wi-Fi or the 3G network, watch TV, answer the door, any of those functions," Jim Carroll, of Savant, said. "I can access a room, look at a security camera. I can turn lights off and on. I can see what media is playing. I can see my kids are watching MTV and turn the TV off on them."
Developers said the system can run anywhere from $5,000 to a couple hundred thousand dollars depending on the complexity of the project.
Upstairs in Esquire magazine's 7th annual "Ultimate Bachelor Pad," technology is less for function and more for flair, including one room that gets as lively as its occupants.
"This is the Obscure digital ghost light system. It's a room visualizer, not just a music visualizer. It actually feeds off of the energy of the room, so when you have a bunch of people in here and you've got the music going and everyone is talking, moving around, making noise, it reacts to that," Andrew Plourde, of Obscura Digital, said.
There's currently no price on the technology because it has yet to be outfitted anywhere else, but when it comes to high tech art, it's tough to out-cool the interactive installation that's actually a part of a pool table.
"There's three different effects. The first is kind of an underwater mercury effect, it's liquid, one is kind of flames and smoke trails, you see particles when the ball is hit little explosions happen, and the third is a reveal which, for the Esquire house, we put pictures of the last few year's Esquire's world's sexiest women covers," Plourde said.
At about $80,000, it's one of only two so far in existence. You'd probably have to drop at least that much at the Hard Rock Casino in Vegas to get access to it inside the high rollers' suite.
