More Than Ten Devices You’ll Connect to Your Wireless Network in the Future

In This Chapter

Singing in the shower (and hot tub) with wireless tunes

Looking under the hood (without lifting the hood)

Losing weight with wireless exercise gear

Wearing wirelessly connected apparel

Tracking Junior and Fido

. . . and more!
We tell you throughout this book to think bigger-picture than just networking
your home computers. In Chapter 11, we talk about adding
various peripheral devices (such as a printer) to your home network. In
Chapters 12 and 13, we talk extensively about all the gaming gear and
audio/visual equipment that you’d want to hook into your wireless home network.
In Chapter 14, you hear about lots of things you can connect today,
ranging from cameras to cars.
Clearly, the boom is on among the consumer goods manufacturers to network-
enable everything with chips. You get the convenience (and cool-factor)
of monitoring the health of your gadgets, and vendors want to sell you addon
services to take advantage of that chip. This transformation is happening
to everything — clocks, sewing machines, automobiles, toaster ovens . . .
even shoes. If a device can be added to your wireless home network, valueadded
services can be sold to those who want to track their kids, listen to
home-stored music in the car, and know when Fido is in the neighbor’s
garbage cans again.
In this chapter, we expose you to some things that you could bring very soon
onto your wireless home network. These aren’t pie-in-the-sky discussions
because many of these products already exist. Expect in the upcoming years
that they will infiltrate your home. Like the Borg say on Star Trek, “Prepare to
be assimilated.”