The "hottest" home technology focuses on energy efficiency and mobile control of the home. For example, the laser robot vacuum which has a laser which allows it to make a map of your house, so it knows what's already been cleaned and what still needs to be done. When it's done, it returns to its home base. Then, there's the new thermal imaging gun which allows you to not only detect energy leaks but water problems, electrical faults and other problems behind the wall. It saves you money and saves you from putting needless holes in the wall to see what's going on back there! Now you can  have a fireplace in any room of the house--mobile, freestanding  fireplaces which can be in the middle of the room or can pop out of a coffee table. They use small tanks of ethanol or other biofuels. Want to have sunlight in a dark closet? Now you can with a sun tunnel--a flexible tube that can navigate rocky paths out to the light and deliver a small, round and elegant portal of light (14" or 21" in diameter) into any home area like closets, hallways, bathrooms, and laundry rooms. Now you can have can lights and ceiling speakers all rolled into one. Some of the speaker systems are wireless and they install like a light bulb--just screw them in. You can program each system for two different zones, so you can listen to different music in different rooms. Also available now is what is called zoned entertainment. Some home music systems allow you to wirelessly connect the speakers all over the house and divide them into zones so you can play the same music throughout or different music in different rooms. It can stream music over the Internet through sources like "Sirius, Rhapsody and Pandora and can be controlled using an iPad, iPhone or iTouch--from anywhere in the house. Smart Grid Appliances are also very "hot" right now. The entire house can get interconnected, master-controlled and wireless--so that you can control from  your smartphone or tablet computer or your remote. And finally, now available--virtual views which allow you to have any view you want--anywhere! It's a digital window comprised of an HD LCD monitor embedded in a custom-designed window frame, that you can put anywhere --on the wall or ceiling.

Blog inspired by article written by Cindy Perman featured on CNBC.com and can be seen here:  http://www.cnbc.com/id/41179915/The_Hottest_New_Home_Technology?slide=1