Your Gift Guide to the Home of the Future

You don't need to completely rewire your home to make it future-friendly. This holiday season, you can buy plenty of plug-and-play devices that will automate and app-control your home, and most of them cost $300 or less. They're great gift ideas for anyone interested in hacking their house, revolutionizing their bathing habits, reinventing their kitchen, or controlling connected devices with the tap of an app.

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Chances are there's someone on your gift list that thinks they have everything. We're willing to bet they don't have a tray that beams all manner of egg-related data to a mobile app. This joint project between Quirky and GE is a 14-spot tray loaded with sensors and a AA-battery-powered Wi-Fi chip. That means it's able to tell you which egg to fry up next (the oldest one) and how many eggs you've got left simply by checking your phone at the supermarket. LED indicator lamps light up next to the oldest egg in the tray, and a light sensor keeps battery life in check by only using power when it senses the fridge door is open. The Egg Minder ($70) displays an egg-centric dashboard via the Wink app for iOS and Android, which controls other devices such as the Pivot Power Genius power strip and the Nimbus personal dashboard.

Photo: Ariel Zambelich/WIRED

If you're out buying groceries and somebody rings your doorbell, does it make a sound? Yes it does, but nobody could say for sure until the Doorbot ($200) existed. This Wi-Fi enabled monitor/doorbell initiates a video call from your front door to your smartphone whenever somebody rings your buzzer. Actually, it's more like half a video call: You can see them, but they can't see you. That makes it useful for talking to delivery men while you're away, answering the doorbell from your couch, or even screening your visitors. The mobile app mimics an intercom, letting you press a button to tell those kids to get off your lawn. The app side of the Doorbot equation is available for Android and iOS.

Photo: Ariel Zambelich/WIRED

If you know anyone who owns a few app-controlled home systems, here's a secret: Their smartphone is probably a mess thanks to all those disparate remote-control apps. Revolv's hub is a multi-protocol wireless receiver with a 65-foot range that also consolidates controls into a single streamlined app. In addition to cleaning up your app arsenal, it'll let you make presets that adjust several of your devices at once; one tap will adjust your lights, speakers, and thermostat to the perfect levels for watching a movie or getting work done. It also uses your phone's location services to automatically perform certain actions -- turn the lights on, flip on the air conditioning, or open the garage door -- when you're approaching your home. Revolv supports several devices in this gift guide, including Sonos speakers, Nest devices, Philips Hue bulbs, and Belkin's WeMo products. It only works with the iPhone and iPad right now, but an Android app is coming in early- to mid-2014 -- as is compatibility with more devices.

Image: Revolv Inc.

The Moxie ($200) is a full-service showerhead with a detachable 1.5-Watt Bluetooth speaker right in the middle of its spray nozzles, making it the most ingenious way to listen to music in the shower we've seen yet. The speaker is obviously water-resistant, but it isn't hydro-powered. You'll need to charge its internal battery back up periodically, and Kohler rates its life at seven hours per charge. The speaker unit's magnetic mount makes it easy to pop in and out, so you can use it as a portable speaker outside the shower too. It'll work with any Bluetooth-capable device that's up to 32 feet away, so you can even have someone else DJ from another room. There are two versions of the showerhead -- one that pumps out 2.5 gallons per minute and another that pumps out 2 gallons -- as well as five different color options for the speaker.

Image: Kohler Co.

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Your Gift Guide to the Home of the Future