You could be forgiven for thinking the main point of mobile technology is to liberate you from your home devices – not just your landline phone but your TV, stereo, desktop computer and games console. Your big appliances live at home, the portable versions in your bag and never the twain shall meet.
But thanks to a new wave of mobile apps and gadgets, that could all be set to change. Your smartphone or tablet could soon be governing your home empire, too.
From controlling your house security and intuitively turning on your heating when it’s most needed to acting as a master remote for your media devices and even working with your baby monitor – we are edging ever closer to a point where all of our household gadgets and appliances could be managed remotely with a single device.
Imagine switching on the lights, changing the TV channel, cranking up the heating and looking for a file on your laptop hard drive all from one screen from the comfort of the sofa. Now it's possible.
It’s only one step away from those childhood fantasies about a future where every household has a cute robot-butler to do all the chores. We all had that fantasy, right?
Whether you're an Android or and iOS user, there are a myriad apps and gadgets available to help you automate your home from one screen. Here are a selection of our favourites.
But it also sounds like the potential catalyst for an obesity crisis. So before you get your entire house hooked up to your smartphone, you might want to invest in a fitness tracker to give you an incentive to leave the sofa once in a while.