Boeing’s Commercial Airplanes’ Product Development has been working on a new concept, the vCabin. The idea is that cabin interior systems like lighting can be controlled from handled devices. Passengers with a smart device could control their lighting, order a meal from the flight attendants, and even check the availability of the lavatories.

Flight attendants could also use the system to monitor the environment of the cabin and control lighting. A system like this would also be able to notify ground crews of any issues automatically and then be fixed. All the information of the smart cabin would be displayed on smartphones, tablets, and watches so the crew always know whats going on.

The system does not rely on Wi-Fi, but small chips embedded near the systems being controlled. Boeing states that, “the connection to the chip is secure and is neither connected to flight-critical airplane systems nor to the traditional in-flight entertainment system,” signifying that the system would be secure with no dangerous vulnerabilities.

Dan Bittner, Product Development lead engineer stated,

We’re really thinking about pushing the boundaries past what we know today. That’s really what this vCabin tool is about — pushing that boundary and accelerating the technology through rapid demonstration and development.

The system is currently being tested on a cabin mockup and could be implemented into Boeing cabins in the future.

Here is the Boeing video demonstrating and explaining some of the concepts of the vCabin: