Blog courtesy of Verizon #SmartHome Ambassador Jean Parks (@geekbabe)

Have you ever wished for a ‘Smart Home?’ I don't know about you but I've longed to be able to control my home heating/cooling, lighting and security all from one central place that I can access from anywhere I might be. Yes, there are various individual systems out there but few of them do it all, and having to deal with multiple accounts, passwords and bills frankly annoys me.

Here’s what’s on my smart home wish list (besides a robot to fold my laundry!):

There's a lot going on at Verizon. In this short video, we share examples of just a handful of cool projects we've been working on and demonstrating around the country and the world. 

It always begins with one simple question: "What if?"

I learned and started focusing on consumer electronics and home appliances accessibility issues through Sunish Gupta (no relation) who I met during my education in Cambridge, MA. Sunish, 40, who was born sighted, experienced the onset of Retinal Pigmentosa, a condition that affects a person’s night vision and peripheral vision, in the mid-1990s. He was diagnosed with the incurable disease in 2001.

The population of the United States is aging rapidly, and many persons in the older population have disabilities that lower their quality of life. In fact:

• 14.2% of persons over 65 reported long-lasting blindness, deafness, or hearing impairment in 2000.
• And 42% reported some type of long-lasting disabilities.

It is important to enable seniors, persons with various disabilities, and other groups of consumers to access easily the ever-more-complex user interfaces found in everyday consumer electronics and home appliances.