Net home offers all econs

"For Sale: Brand new five-bedroom, three-bathroom home equipped with economy heating, double glazing - and £25,000 sterling [€39,197] worth of Internet network infrastructure and cutting-edge technology. Situated north of London just seconds from the information superhighway. £500,000."

For years, it has been the dream of electronics wizards and the stuff of science fiction: a home so technologically advanced that you could run it from the office or without leaving your armchair.

On Wednesday, the futuristic vision became a reality when Europe's first Internet home went on sale in Watford, north of London.

The house, one of 10 of its kind on the new estate, is being billed by house builders Laing Homes as looking little different from any affluent modern development. But the 72 power points, 72 cables, four Compaq PCs, four ISDN lines - very high quality phone lines that allow pictures to be sent without interference, like an upmarket fax machine - and four web cams, which allow the home's inhabitants to view rooms in the house on the World Wide Web, set it firmly apart from the average "des res".

The Internet home allows residents to switch on the kettle or coffee maker without moving to the kitchen, turn up the heating or dim the lights while at the office, and view a sleeping baby while in another country.

Sprinklers can be turned on in the garden without venturing from an armchair, and those anxious about security need only look at a computer screen to check what's outside the window.

Inhabitants barely need leave the house, since a video-conferencing system allows them to speak face-to-face with the outside world.

If they need to shop, they can do it over the Net after checking their levels of supplies on a hand-held scanner which reveals how much food is in the house.

The whole range of operations is run by accessing the Internet on one of the computers, or by using the Web pad - a portable, book-size computer that can be used like a remote control.

The heating, lights and security systems can all be activated from outside the home, and rooms in the house which are filmed by the Web cams can be seen by accessing the Net from any computer.

The house may appear state-of-the-art, but Cisco Systems, the Internet infrastructure company that installed the £5,000 network and £20,000 worth of technology, stresses that all the devices are currently on the British market.

"This is not futuristic by any stretch of the imagination. All this technology is available today. We are just showcasing it all together," said Mr Bill Nuti, president of Cisco in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The company, which has installed 80 per cent of the world's Internet services, is convinced there is a market for such homes. Four have already been sold. Critics argue that at present they will only appeal to an affluent few who discovered the Net early and are obsessed with the latest technology.