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Period: to
Pre-Modern
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Motorized Vacuum Cleaner
British engineer, Hubert Cecil Booth patented a motorized vacuum cleaner on August 30, 1901. Booth's machine took the form of a large, horse-drawn, petrol-driven unit, which was parked outside the building to be cleaned with long hoses being fed through the windows.
Prior to the vacuum cleaner service the family would have to manually sweep and clean their own homes; now they could hire someone else to do it which would save them time/energy and gave them more time to do other chores and bond. -
Hoover Vacuum
Spangler gathered a tin soap box, a fan, a sateen pillow case and a broom handle, and assembled an odd-looking, cumbersome contraption that managed to pull the dust away from the air he breathed. He later sold the rights to W.H. Hoover.
Now the family could clean their own homes with quickness and ease rather than having to hire someone or do it themselves. This freed up time for family bonding or other tasks. -
Electric Toaster (non pop-up)
In July, 1909, Frank Shailor of General Electric submitted his patent application for the D-12, considered the first commercially successful electric toaster.
Before this invention the family would have to toast their own bread which took more time and was a bit more dangerous. Now they could complete others tasks as their bread toasted itself and it was a bit less likely to be burned. This made family breakfast time a bit less labor heavy. -
Automatic Dishwasher
The Walker brothers of Philadelphia produced the first electric dishwasher to go on the market. The model included a pulley and a belt so the machine could operate automatically.
This made managing time with the family much easier. This allowed families to wash dirty dishes while they could do other things at the same time. Less chores for the family and more free time to do other things makes a happy family indeed. -
Electric Refrigerator
In 1914, engineer Nathaniel B. Wales of Detroit, Michigan, introduced an idea for a practical electric refrigeration unit, which later became the basis for the Kelvinator.
Ice boxes were inconvenient to maintain and temperatures were not always ideal. Now with the electric fridge the family could adjust the temperature to their liking and the replacement of ice was no longer an issue. This made the keeping of food much easier on the family and more food could be purchased at a time. -
Pop-up Toaster
To circumvent the need for continual human attention, Charles Strite incorporated springs and a variable timer, and filed the patent for his pop-up toaster on May 29, 1919. He intended the device would be sold to the restaurant trade.
The pop up toaster made breakfast time the easiest in history. You could cook eggs for your family while the toaster made the other half of the breakfast. A real time saver! -
Handheld Hair Dryer
The first hand-held hair dryer was put on the market in 1920. Unlike modern hair dryers, the first hand-held hair dryer was big, bulky and frequently overheated. Capable of producing only 100 watts of heat, the first hand-held hair dryer was not able to dry hair very quickly.
Drying one's hair could be a real hassle and time consumer. With this invention doing your hair was done in a jiffy! This left more time for family outings and other activities that would have otherwise been shortened. -
Clothes Iron with Adjustable Temperature Control
The Silex Company introduces the first iron with an adjustable temperature control. The thermostat, devised by Joseph Myers, is made of pure silver.
This invention made the ironing of clothes a really simple and quick task. Now people didn't have to go to an outside service to make their clothes look nice and it saved ample time of getting ready and looking one's best. -
Electric Clothes Washer
John W. Chamberlain of Bendix Corporation invented a device that allowed a washing machine to wash, rinse, and extract water from clothes in a single operation.
Clothes washing used to be time consuming and labor intensive, now a family could wash their clothes without breaking a sweat and have more time to do other things. -
Electric Clothes Dryer
To spare his mother having to hang wet laundry outside in the brutal North Dakota winter, J. Ross Moore builds an oil-heated drum in a shed next to his house, thereby creating the first clothes dryer.
Not only can we now wash our clothes on own but now there's no need to wait for a clothes line to do the drying! Getting clean clothes now takes hardly any time at all and the whole family can get out of the home looking clean much quicker! -
Period: to
Modern
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Bonnet Hair Dryer
This new type of hair dryer consisted of a more lightweight hand-held hair dryer connected by a tube to a bonnet which was worn on the head. When the hair dryer was switched on, air would flow through the tube and come out through holes in the bonnet.
This hairdryer freed up hands to multitask. Now one could dry their hair while also knitting hats for their families or really any other task they could not do while their hands were full. Multitasking really saves quite a bit of time! -
Automatic Coffee Pot
Russell Hobbs invents the CP1, the first automatic coffeepot as well as the first of what would become a successful line of appliances. The percolator regulates the strength of the coffee according to taste and has a green warning light and bimetallic strip that automatically cuts out when the coffee is perked.
Whose parents don't love coffee? This invention made making coffee a breeze and everyone's morning routines improve when mom and pop have coffee in hand in a matter of minutes! -
Microwave Oven
The first Raytheon commercial microwave oven was the 1161 Radarange, which was marketed in 1954. Rated at 1600 watts, it was so large and expensive that it was practical only for restaurant and institutional use.
Cooking can really take a long time. This invention cut cooking time in half, and with the presence of TV dinner's dinner could be done in just a few minutes! No more need to wait for the oven to preheat; this invention saves so much time and effort for a family it's almost criminal! -
12-Speed Mixer
One of the brightest cooking invention during the 1950's was the speed mixer. This mixer had 150-watts power and any choice of twelve speeds to choose from.
This invention made cooking an absolute piece of cake (pun intended.) This saves so much time in the kitchen that cooking took 1/3 of the time, leaving plenty of time to do other things such as cleaning, bonding with family, or really any other thing we could think to do with all our free time. It also made arms ache a whole lot less! -
VCR
Ampex introduced the Quadruplex videotape professional broadcast standard format with its Ampex VRX-1000. It became the world's first commercially successful videotape recorder using a 2" wide tape.
This allowed us to watch movies at home at greater ease as well as be able to record our favorite shows and movies right at home! A great way to bond with the family as well as be able to leave the house and still get to see your shows when you got home rather than plan your life around the TV guide. -
Electric Can Opener
Automatic can opener that allowed individuals a faster and safer way to open cans. This invention also made it safe for a child to use.
Not only can kids help a bit more in the kitchen now, but families in general benefited from having this quick and easy way to open all of their canned good, which were many of the food items indeed. Any time cut down in the kitchen is good for families since it leaves more time to pay attention to the other food and keep an eye on the kids! -
Affordable Smoke Detector for the Home
The first low-cost smoke detector for domestic use was developed by Duane D. Pearsall in 1965, an individual replaceable battery-powered unit that could be easily installed.
This makes the family so much safer when they may not be aware a fire has broken out, perhaps when they are asleep. Nothing throws a wrench into family and life management like a burnt down house or even worse, family who do not survive. This invention keeps everything going as smoothly as it can and loved ones intact. -
Electric Sewing Machine
Singer introduces the Athena 2000, the world’s first electronic sewing machine. A wide variety of stitches, from basic straight to complicated decorative, are available at the touch of a button.
Hand sewing takes a century, and kids love to rip their clothes. This invention takes all the time out of fixing everyone's clothes and allows families have more time doing what they love rather than spending hours fixing a seem or making new clothes for the ever growing child. -
Cell Phone
Motorola was the first company to produce a handheld mobile phone. In 1983, Motorola released its first commercial mobile phone, known as the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. The handset offered 30 minutes of talk-time, six hours standby, and could store 30 phone numbers. It also cost $3995.
Who needs to comb the city for a payphone to call the family now? Not us! Now we can get a hold of anyone we need in a jiffy. This makes managing our lives and our families so much simpler and convenient. -
Internet
The online world then took on a more recognizable form in 1990, when computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web.
A trip to the library to read through an encyclopedia is no longer needed. Now we can find all we need right at home with the click of a button. Kids spend less time of homework and parents less time on work, freeing up time for family bonding or other tasks that needed to be completed. -
SAD lamps
In the early 1990's experiments were conducted by Sunnex Biotechnologies to create what we know as SAD lamps to help people stricken with seasonal affective disorder. These lamps help people not get seasonal depression, and as depression affects not only those affected but all of those around them, I feel like it does help with family management. It is difficult to find motivation to complete tasks when depressed and it makes your family and loved ones sad as well. These lamps help reverse this. -
Period: to
Post-Modern
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WiFi
In 1991, NCR Corporation with AT&T Corporation invented the precursor to 802.11, intended for use in cashier systems. The first wireless products were under the name WaveLAN. They are the ones credited to inventing Wi-Fi.
If the internet wasn't great enough, WiFi made it even better. Now we can access internet from a variety of sources instead of our home computer, making the retrieval of information even easier and freeing up even more time for our families or tasks that need to be done. -
Smart Phone
A refined version of the product was marketed to consumers in 1994 by BellSouth under the name Simon Personal Communicator. The Simon was the first cellular device that can be properly referred to as a "smartphone", although it was not called that in 1994.
Want to do more than make calls? Now with the smart phone we can accomplish everything our computers can, making socialization and information even more quickly accessible which gives us more time for other things to accomplish. -
Autonomous Robotic Vacuum Cleaner
The first robot cleaner to be put into production was Electrolux Trilobite by the Swedish household and professional appliances manufacturer. However, the most popular autonomous robotic vacuum cleaner is the Roomba.
Now the family doesn't even need to get up to clean the floors! This saves so much time from chores and gives the family ample amount of time to do other things or just spend time with one another. -
Bluetooth Phone Earpiece
In 1994 a group of engineers at Ericsson, a Swedish company, invented a wireless communication technology, later called Bluetooth.
Bluetooth frees up people's hands to do all sorts of other things and be able to multitask. It also keeps our phones safe in our pockets and less likely to get dropped or stolen right out of our hands. All of these benefits makes managing time and work a much easier task. -
USB Flash Drive
A small, portable flash memory card that plugs into a computers USB port and functions as a portable hard drive.
This handy device is a kid's best friend in regards to school. Rather than using multiple floppy disks or praying an email gets sent and received we can now use a tiny stick to save all we need. This saves time and effort for the transfer of information and puts a students mind at ease which is always a good thing, especially when dealing with teenagers! -
Invention of the DVR
DVR made it easy to watch things on your schedule. No longer did you have to work around the TV, but the TV worked around you. And no more fussing with pesky VHS tapes!
This invention made watching all your shows so easy and effortless it's criminal. No more worrying about taping over the wedding videos or babies first steps, now TV is easier than ever before! This made family time a lot less hectic as getting the show or movie started takes a matter of seconds. -
iPod
Jobs took the stage at Apple’s HQ to announce the first iPod. From the get-go, he has large ambitions for the device. He calls it a “breakthrough digital device.”
This device allows people to carry less items (like CD's) on them and still get the music they want. Now families can go on a jog without stopping to change CD's and they have less baggage to bring with them which saves time (for packing) and overall makes the listening of music, a great family activity, a lot easier. -
iPhone (the beginning of the "modern" smart phone)
Jobs conceived an idea of using a multi-touch touchscreen to interact with a computer in a way in which he could type directly onto the display, essentially removing the physical keyboard and mouse.
Nothing says good parenting like a GPS device on a kids phone. This phone not only makes getting a hold of each other easier, but also allows the parents to manage what their kids are viewing as well as what they are doing. Keeping kids safe is certainly a good way to manage the family. -
High-Speed Internet
Dial up is a thing of the past. Getting on the internet (and being on the phone at the same time!) is now effortless and much less stressful. This makes the access of information for school or for work so much easier and frees up unbelievable amounts of time for the entire family to enjoy.
