System "SPHINX" - Soviet smart home of the 80s

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

In the 1980s, the USSR not only built "Buran" and played perestroika, but also tried to predict the future of the consumer paradise. It's hard to believe, but at that time Soviet scientists were able to predict the appearance of smart watches, smartphones, laptops, and wireless connection of home electronics. Moreover, all this was supposed to be connected into a single system, organizing something like a smart home.

The union was already beginning to burst at the seams, but numerous institutes, bureaus and other departments with wonderful abbreviations still continued to work, sometimes giving out fresh ideas that were several decades ahead of their time. Blogger Sergey aquatek-filipsAnashkevich tells about them.

In September 1987, an article about the SPHINX radio complex, striking with its progressive design and idea, was published in the Soviet magazine "Technical Aesthetics". The concept, anticipating the modern idea of a smart home, was developed by the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Technical Aesthetics (VNIITE).

The institute identified the main drawback of the system of household appliances that existed at that time (TV, tape recorder, VCR, speakers). Actually, there was no system, which was the main drawback. In fact, many devices duplicated the functionality of each other, while practically not interacting or combining in any way.

VNIITE employees proposed to abandon separate devices, replacing them with functional blocks combined into a system. "In the near future, there will be a transition to more and more universal media on which a wide variety of information will be stored in digital form - music, video programs, slides, educational and game programs, texts."

As conceived by scientists, the central processor will distribute digital information across screens, speakers and other blocks. To arrange these blocks throughout the apartment (for example, the processor sends a movie to one room, a video game to another, and an audiobook in the kitchen), it was proposed to lay so-called bus ducts across the square meters of Soviet citizens.

It is amazing that even then, 30 years ago, the elements of portable electronics were thought out: "The most unexpected solutions are possible here: for example, sunglasses, at the user's command, turn into a display showing the time or other necessary information such as air temperature."

In accordance with the VNIITE concept, a project was developed for equipping housing for the near future - SPHINX (Super Functional Integrated Communicative System). In the fantasies of researchers, it looked something like this:

Almost all devices are perfectly recognizable, right? Unless the thing that looks like a fantastic spaceship in the lower right corner is embarrassing. In fact, this is the main element of the SPHINX system - the "central processor". It was he who had to accept commands, process them and distribute tasks between functional blocks.

The strange petals inserted into it are storage media, analogs of modern hard drives. It was assumed that each such "disk" will provide the leisure of one family member. That is, for example, one petal contains films and games for the child, the other contains music and educational programs for mom, and the third contains business applications for dad.

Provided for both wired and wireless connection of other devices. The developers believed that the processor would be able to receive information and relay it to other household appliances using a radio signal. In addition, it had to contain a block that converts various types of signals into digital form.

The central processor had to transmit the necessary content to the display. The apartment could be equipped with any number of screens of different diagonal and columns of different shapes.

“The screens are used to watch films, TV programs, works of art, other images and phonograms, collective computer games, fragments of a family album can also be displayed here. The family can arrange friendly teleconferences or business meetings,”the scientists dreamed. This description from the journal "Technical Aesthetics" today easily recognizes online games, Skype, smart TVs and even electronic photo frames.

The smallest screen was planned to be built into the remote control. “This will allow using the dialogue system of communication with the computer to give any command to the complex,” says the description of the device. In addition, such a remote control could function as a calculator, clock, timer and miniature TV. A built-in microphone would provide voice control of the system.

The diagonal arrangement of the buttons, as was then believed, is extremely convenient for working with the remote control. Each key had to be highlighted, if necessary, it was possible to activate an audible response to pressing.

In addition to the miniature one, it was envisaged to create a full-size remote control, more like a computer keyboard. The first option was completely touch-sensitive, the second - with hardware keys and a cordless telephone in the form of a separate tube. The latter could be connected to a screen in the form of a tablet and get something reminiscent of a modern laptop.

Add here wireless headphones and small speakers - and we get the project of the first smart home in the USSR.

The authors of the SPHINX practically did not see the limit of the functionality of their brainchild. First, entertainment and work, then - much more serious tasks. The system, for example, was supposed to monitor the state of the house in the absence of the owners, provide background information on any issues and even help with medical diagnostics.

However, at that time all the possibilities of the SPHINX, as well as the system itself, looked good only on the pages of youth magazines. Creation of workable layouts, not to mention translating all this into reality, was out of the question. The Soviet Union was rapidly approaching the last stage of its disintegration. Who cares then about the fantasies of some designers and engineers.