9 Things in Your Home That Won’t Exist in 10 Years

Cable Jacks and Ports

Do you still have a tangle of cables behind your TV? Not for long. Turns out, people aren’t as interested in cable TV anymore with streaming services like Netflix. Home technology is getting smarter, and increasingly going wireless. Learn about what makes a home device “smart.”

Alarm Clocks

That old clock radio that used to blare on your bedside stand? Likely already gone. “There’s so much more flexibility with your phone,” says Sonia Chernova, Associate Professor in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech. Plus: Here are 10 things people don’t know how to do around the house anymore.

Home phones

While landlines still make sense in some workplaces, with the wide use of cellphones, “the home phone is very much in danger of extinction at this point,” Chernova says. Just about 40 percent of American households still used a landline as of December 2017, according to the CDC.

Checkbooks

Americans pay more than half their bills online, according to a 2017 survey. They’re also buying products through services like Paypal and Venmo. “Checkbooks are definitely on the decline,” says Chernova, “due to worries about security as well as practical reasons.”

Stereos

Dedicated music players such as stereos are becoming more of a rarity in homes. “Everyone’s using other devices, such as cellphones with Bluetooth speakers at this point,” Chernova says. These are the best smart speakers on the market.

DVD player

Even if you wanted to watch some older movies, you can’t get a new Mac with a DVD player anymore. While there’s a lot to be said for the selection of films that may never make it to Netflix, you can’t beat the convenience. Find out the coolest tech products to get.

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Streaming boxes

The Roku and FireStick were intermediate solutions for people who didn’t have smart TVs. But the market for them is going away. “The smart TVs come with the technology built into them already,” Chernova says.

Photo albums

With cell phones, people are taking more photos than ever. But they’re storing them in the cloud and using digital picture services such as Aura Frames to organize and display their family photos. “Photo albums don’t even cross our kids’ mind,” Chernova says.

MP3 players

While some people still like the idea of keeping a music player separate from their phone, products such as iPods became less popular once cell phones became capable of the same functionality as MP3 players, according to Chernova.

Next, check out 50 home tech products we love.