1950: Push Button Manor
Your classic crackpot inventor's gaff
The first truly solid, wall-to-wall automated home was that created and lived in by a mechanical whiz known as Emil Mathias in Jackson, Michigan of the USA. A dab hand with a spanner, he created an abode where the majority of regular tasks could be achieved with the push of a button and it was so impressive, if impractical here and there, that it was featured in the magazine Popular Mechanics in 1950.
Mathias made curtains that could be drawn automatically, a wind-powered coffee grinder, a vanity mirror for his wife that lit up when she opened the drawer of her dresser, and a series of clocks which time-orchestrated it all. Not sponsored, not for sale, it was basically your classic crackpot inventor's gaff.