Thanks to Bang & Olufsen we're one step closer to the 'smarthouse' dream becoming a reality. The BeoTime is a flute-shaped alarm clock that can do more than just tell time and wake you up from pleasant dreams. It also has the ability to remotely interact with and control any Bang & Olufsen home entertainment equipment in the house.

If you have a tendency to fall asleep watching TV, you can use the BeoTime alarm clock to program your TV to go into standby after a certain amount of time. You can do the same thing with any other Bang & Olufsen equipment. All you have to do is set an interval of up to 120 minutes and select which electronics you want to shut off after that amount of time has elapsed.

The BeoTime isn't very large so it should be easy to store on your nightstand or in its magnetic wall mount. This is definitely one of the cooler home entertainment products I've seen lately, but I am somewhat dubious about how useful it will really prove. Unless your whole home entertainment set-up comes from Bang & Olufsen, you aren't going to get much value out of this $350 alarm clock.

On the plus side, the fact that this sort of technology is available to rich people now (well, August 2009) means that similar, cheaper devices will be available for the rest of us soon. It won't be long before every electronic item in the house is connected together in one massive 'home' network. When that happens, convenience (and thus laziness) will reach a bold new peak. I can't wait.