Driving up to the mock-Tudor 1930s house there was little to suggest it was anything more than an ordinary home. A row of mature conifer trees crowded the entrance gate while a gravel drive led to a neatly mown front lawn.
Security was not visibly tight, apart from a small camera and redundant retinal scanner at the front door. But this was not a real house. This was Orange's hi-tech living laboratory where for the past 12 months, families have been watched Big Brother style, while they played with the latest wireless gizmos and gadgets.
The house, stuck in the middle of a Hatfield business park, has recently been doctored. Orange has taken the results from its observations and focus groups and made changes, kicking out the less commercially viable technologies. Orange House version 2.0 is supposed to be a more realistic view of how families (with a high disposable income, of course) could live over the next three to five years and beyond.
The interior of the house retained its character. The design and hi-tech gadgetry that survived the cull did not impinge on the fact that this was an old farmhouse (bought for £500,000 two years ago) where real people could live. And just to prove it, the phone company found four families, each of whom spent no more than two weeks in the house.
For their troubles, they were filmed through wall-mounted cameras and their behaviour and technology usage was studied and analysed by Orange staff and academics from the Digital World Research Centre at Surrey University.
According to Jon Carter, project manager for Orange at Home, by far the biggest success was the always-on broadband internet connection and the ability to wirelessly access music, computer games and DVDs from a variety of rooms, controlled by a central server at the back of the house. In mum and dad's room, a large pull-down screen enabled DVD viewing or network gaming from the bed. An interactive Smart Board gave the daughter access to web games and control of her Sony Aibo dog. Mobile web pads were used as remote control and internet access devices and the large flat screen TV with access to TiVo's Digital Video recorder was "a big hit with all ages", said Carter.
But not everything got such a glowing report. While the company gleaned useful research on what people liked and wanted to use, it also discovered what people didn't want, and that's a bigger list.
For one, never underestimate the traditional light switch. Moulded from white plastic, these manually operated devices offer quick and easy access to domestic or commercial lighting. Few will be surprised to hear that these switches have made a comeback and ousted their voice-activated cousins.
The same goes for a number of other home control areas. Automated doors got the chop, especially after one family's dog got locked in the loo, so did automated heating systems, remote-controlled washing machines and internet fridges.
In fact, Orange's once fully wired-up vision of the future has been downgraded. The company's initial wish when it first built the house last year was to wire up everything. The four families that lived in the house have proved that people simply aren't ready for the kind of remote controlled, automated world that was the Orange House version 1.0.
"People don't change," said Carter. "The philosophy is that if it works, don't fix it. People won't pay money to web-enable a coffee maker, for example. Why should they?"
The smart toilet that examines your stool and calls for an ambulance when it detects something sinister got the thumbs down from Carter, too. He also said that devices such as the face recognition door entry system, the voice-activated control of the washing machine and the remotely operated digital bath are "a long way off" in the minds of consumers.
It's been a testing time for Orange. The project has so far cost £2m and Carter has been under some pressure to make the research from the house pay. Carter says that in 12 months, Orange will unveil two products conceived as a result of findings made at the house and it has forged partnerships with the likes of Dyson, TiVo, Samsung, Panasonic and Sony in an attempt to develop more products and services.
After all, Orange is not in the business of making TVs and tablets but it is interested in wireless services. Technologies such as Bluetooth were highly regarded, particularly when it came to transmitting snaps from a digital camera, down the mobile phone and into a digital picture frame on the wall. One thing is certain: Orange's vision is now a little more realistic and it has ordinary people and not men in white coats to thank for that.
