1989 thought houses would look like this by 2020 | Tomorrow's World | Past Predictions | BBC Archive

What are the biggest changes to our homes going to be by the year 2020? Will the house of the future be environmentally friendly? What new materials might they be manufactured from, and what new technology will we be living with?

Tomorrow's World's Judith Hann and Howard Stableford enlist the help of futurist Christine MacNulty and glass technology specialist David Button to predict how we might be living in 30 years time, and make a mock-up house in the studio.

Originally broadcast 12 December, 1989.

00:00 Introduction
00:27 Christine MacNulty on the future home
00:58 Home automation
01:41 Change your windows to walls or a TV - David Button
03:05 Energy management
03:53 Smart heating

You have now entered the BBC Archive, a time machine that will transport you back to the golden age of TV to educate, entertain and enlighten you with classic clips from the BBC vaults.

[professionalcrispreviewer]

Fairly accurate overall, they just forgot to mention that nobody will be able to afford a home

[Helbore]

That was surprisingly more accurate than I was expecting. Smart lighting, smart thermostats, miniturised computers everywhere, inductive charging pads, voice control. All of it exists in some fashion now, even if it doesn't necessarily exist in quite the fashion they imagined, nor is it all in every home.

The only part they got completely wrong was the idea that we'd take the looming energy crisis seriously and do something about it. Heating bills being practically zero? I wish!

[thecrafter]

Ah yes, the good old days when people were optimistic about the future.

[ffinybryn]

1:20 "Bach please"
Alexa: "Woof"

[samuelwoods]

My dad was born in 1945 so finished school in 1961.... when I was a kid he used to tell me he had a teacher that used to say soon they would have TVs that you can hang on the wall like a picture (no I'm glad my dad got to see that happen before he died

[edwardp.gannon]

Turned out many of us would be living in exactly the same houses as in 1989, except we are now renting a room in them with another four people.

[JCO]

I wish I lived in 2020 - it sounds marvelous.

[JK-wzuj]

"The home of the future will look like this"
*Shows an interior that looks dated even in 1989*

[upthebuffer]

One things for sure. In 2020 we got to spend a lot more time looking at the insides of our homes.

[bmused]

I distinctly remember this. Not for the tech, but for being a 9 year old wondering what I'll be like as a 40 year old in 2020. It seemed so impossibly far away.

[Jaxymann]

1989: I wish I could live in this house!
2020: I wish I could afford a house!

[josephharden]

I just told my Google home speaker to play Bach and it picked the exact same song as that guy 😮💯... 🤘🏽😎 2024 here

[AtheistOrphan]

‘Heating bills reduced almost to zero’ - I laughed my spleen up at that.

[Ryarios]

I think the biggest thing that they failed to take into account is the sheer number of homes that would still exist that were built before this tech becomes available.

[razor]

Fast forward to 2020, and we all wish we had the quality of life we had in 1989.

[Ivoid]

dude, that smart glass thing is the first time I've seen something like that. I've seen windows that have a curtain that covers them up with a button or something but not that, thats pretty cool. I just did a quick research on why it isn't a big thing today and its mainly because of cost, you would think that most cars today would have something like that. Crazy

[Blipy]

The reason why this video aged much better than others was because none of these were a crazy stretch. Most of the videos in this genre talk about things that even we couldn't imagine making, but each of these items that they show here were based off of something that had alredy been created, and if enough people put their minds to it, could make a reality even back then.

[TheHappyKamper]

1989 "2020 will be amazing"
2020 "I can't wait for this terrible year to end"

[markcowley]

I used to enjoy watching Tomorrow's World as a kid. A mainstream TV program that treated the viewers as intelligent people.

[jrg]

They hit the nail on the head the entire video, only thing is most people who lived through 2020 wish it was 1989 again.