Everyone wonders what the future will hold and while we technically have no idea of knowing for sure, there are people creating concepts everyday that could one day appear.

Electrolux runs its Design Lab competition every year where students worldwide are challenged to create a time-relevant concept. The topic this year was healthy homes and it involved three focus areas comprising culinary enjoyment, fabric care and air purifying.

Healthy and smart homes are becoming increasingly prominent and while the Design Lab concepts are a little far fetched, the six finalist ideas represent the kind of cool things you could find in your kitchen or home in the future.

UrbanCONE

UrbanCONE is one of the two air purification finalists and the idea behind it is to purify the air around an entire city, as well as your home. A concept that could deliver a less polluted London sounds like a winner to us.

The device is an automatic, radio-controlled smart device that lifts up and flies in the air like a jellyfish, with the cones clustering together in populated centers for greater filtration.

The UrbanCONE has an ultra light construction along with photovoltaic solar panel wings and it purifies the air through the exchangeable filters underneath the wings of the cones.

Lotus

Lotus is an air purifier that comes with three portable and rechargeable air cleaning balls and it makes up the second finalist in the air purification section.

The main body provides general purification, while the three balls called Pure Ball, Odor Ball and Humid Ball, can be taken anywhere so you can use them for things like cooking, sleeping or cleaning your closet.

Lotus works by using Super Plasma Ion Technology to generate hydrogen and oxygen ions, which eliminate biological contaminants and active oxygen where they locate. In other words, this concept gives you one fresh house.

Set to Mimic

Set to Mimic is a concept that would come in very handy for those of you that want to go on a diet but don't like the taste of healthy food, or for those that want to change the taste or smell of food or drinks into something you really enjoy.

One of the Culinary Enjoyment finalists, this idea allows you to store the mental experience you get when you eat something you like, as data within a computer inside the plate and glass. It does this by transferring a wireless signal from the patches attached to your head, which capture synapse information inside your brain and converts it to data.

Therefore, you could put a selection of vegetables on the plate, select a product from the alphabetised list that you like and then pop the transparent gel patches on your head to convert the taste into burgers and chips instead.

Future Hunter-Gatherer

The Future Hunter-Gatherer is the second of the Culinary Enjoyment finalists and it is perhaps the most fun of the finalist ideas as it allows you to play a game.

This idea is a virtual grocery shopping experience inspired by nature that projects a hologram, allowing you to essentially build your weekly shop by catching, hunting or gathering it. The food you collect is then transmitted to your grocery store or market, turned into actual goods and delivered to your door.

It may be a little more Star Trek than others but it would certainly make shopping more fun and it helps you understand where you food has come from in case you didn't know tuna was a fish for example.

PETE

PETE is one of the fabric care finalists and the idea behind this concept is to give you another use for your plastic bottles, other than just putting them in the recycling bin.

It merges plastic bottles to create garments according to your tastes so you choose the clothing type you want, the colour and the cut and the PETE machine will let you know how many PET bottles you need to create it.

PETE will then turn the bottles into polyester and print your garments so it might make you drink more Coca Cola than usual, but at least you'll have cool eco-clothes from them.

PureTowel

The last of the six Design Lab finalists is PureTowel, which will make sure you always have a clean towel to use after your shower or bath.

Also coming under the fabric care category like PETE, PureTowel cleans your towel after every use by using an ultra violet ray and a high speed dryer fan to purify and dry the towel in a couple of seconds.

The PureTowel eliminates 99.9 per cent of the bacteria in a towel, along with reducing the humidity to help you and your bathroom stay clean and healthy.

The winner of the Electrolux Design Lab will be announced tonight, 12 November, and will receive a €5000 prize, as well as an internship with Electrolux global design centre so perhaps one of these concepts isn't too far in the future after all.