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From Digital Home Magazine | www.digitalhomeonline.com

Smart Homes, Smarter Appliances
When it comes to cool new refrigerators, the future is now.
But should builders rush to offer the latest high-tech gadgets?
BY DAN TYAN
05-01-2007

For decades, we've heard that someday, home appliances will be smarter than their owners. Refrigerators will know when you've run out of milk; washing machines will change settings based on the clothes inside; foolproof ovens will help homeowners cook like world-class chefs.

Somewhere along the way, someday became now. In high-end custom homes, smart appliances are doing their thinking today. And within a few short years, this type of technology should be within reach of millions of homeowners.

“Imagine an alarm clock that's connected to traffic reports on the Net, and adjusts what time it goes off depending on how bad the traffic is, then turns on your coffee maker,” says Marc Resnick, director of the institute for technological innovation at Florida International University. “Or a washer that tells you how to get rid of a particular kind of stain; this temperature water for so many minutes. We can do all this right now.”

In fact, says Resnick, the technology is the easy part. The hard part is ensuring such products are friendly enough that people will actually use them—and compelling enough that they'll pay extra for them.

There's no dearth of Jetsons-like appliances and fixtures for high-end homes. In fact, the first Internet-enabled refrigerators were unveiled late last century. But the products were ready long before the market was. It turns out people didn't want to surf the Web while they were raiding the icebox, says Matt Newton, innovation manager at Whirlpool.

“We were ready for this years ago,” says Newton. “We had refrigerators with Web tablets built into the front, and teams ready to make them happen back in 2000. But the market didn't take off the way everyone thought it would.”

AVAILABLE TODAY: Laing Luxury Homes offers the Connect Io Intelligent Oven, right, in two communities. Kohler's C3-200 toilet seat, below, has a programmable remote control for adjusting various settings.

These days, however, the smart-appliance market is seeing a rebirth, thanks to the growth of home networks and the boom in connected entertainment devices. In January, Samsung and LG Electronics introduced new smart refrigerators with LCD displays in the door that let families enjoy entertainment and share information in the kitchen. Such interactive fridges go for around $3,500.

For its part, Newton's group recently previewed the new CentralPark Connection, an interface that will mount on the front of Whirlpool refrigerators and let homeowners plug in DVD players, iPods, and other devices (www.whirlpool.com). CentralPark is due out this fall.

However, most connected appliances are likely to use technology in ways that are less visible to consumers, but possibly more useful.

Later this year, German appliance maker Miele will unveil its Wi-Fi-enabled MasterCool refrigerators and wine-storage devices (www.miele.com). Using the unit's RemoteVision technology, the fridge will be able to log onto a wireless home network and notify Miele service personnel if it suffers a mechanical problem, or if somebody just forgot to close the door. Miele can then contact the homeowner and set up a service call (or tell them to shut the fridge). This kind of automated monitoring can help keep expensive wine collections from being ruined.

MasterCool fridges already are going into custom home projects, says company spokesperson Lori Dolnick, and Miele has extended RemoteVision technology to its line of washers and dryers. The company also plans to network-enable its dishwashers and ovens.

At February's International Builders' Show, Cleveland –based TMIO debuted its new Connect Io Intelligent Oven (www.tmio.com). The Connect Io, which costs around $6,000 in a dual-oven configuration, lets homeowners start and stop cooking or check the status of their meals from anywhere—even while stuck in traffic. The oven connects to a broadband home network via Cat-5 wiring or a wireless bridge. Homeowners can then call up their oven from the TMIO Web site and access a software version of the oven's touch-panel controls. If they don't have computer access, they can call into the TMIO voice-control center and issue commands to the oven over the phone.

Whirlpool has tested similar capabilities for washers and dryers, though it has yet to bring such connected appliances to the market. Last July, the company took part in the well-publicized Laundry Time project, a field test with three families in Atlanta that involved technology from Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Panasonic, and Procter & Gamble. Using Wi-Fi, the machines sent status alerts to consumers via their cell phones, PCs, or TV sets, notifying them if, for example, the wash was done. In general, the pilot found people liked keeping tabs on their laundry while watching TV, but didn't see the need for cell phone alerts.

Smart appliances aren't limited to kitchens and laundry rooms. Kohler's new DTV Custom Showering System (roughly $1,100) lets homeowners select water pressure, hydromassage, and temperature for each showerhead, then save the settings as a custom program. Family members can then select their own personal showering experience from the DTV's digital display (www.us.kohler.com).

Kohler also recently came out with its C3-200 toilet seat, which marries old-school bidet functionality with next-generation technology. The electronic C3-200 has an in-line water heater, a user sensor (to turn down the power when no one is using it), and a programmable remote control that homeowners can set to their preferred temperatures, water flows, and more.

As products enter high-end homes, they'll have to be networked so they can talk to each other. So far, home networks have been built primarily around computers and entertainment gear, and covered applications such as distributed audio and home automation.

Though kitchen and laundry connectivity is still a nascent concept, those devices soon will ride on home networks the way lighting control and other products do today. Earlier this year, LG announced a line of washers and dryers that are compatible with Exceptional Innovation's LifeWare automation software, which lets consumers control devices using a Windows Media Center PC or LifeWare-compatible touchpad (www.exceptionalinnovation.com).

Today, many appliances can be controlled remotely using custom systems from vendors such as Crestron, or by plugging them into off-the-shelf modules that communicate using wireless technologies such as ZigBee or Z-Wave (for more on wireless technology, see page 52). Even then, in most cases users are usually limited to turning the devices on or off. As more appliances come with networking technology built in, they'll start to be used in truly revolutionary ways, says Mike Seamons, vice president of marketing for Exceptional Innovation.

For example, your fridge will be able to send you an e-mail at work when you're running low on milk, or your oven will be able to query your fridge and tell you what recipes match the ingredients you have on hand. Your washer or dryer may be able to detect what type of fabrics are inside it and adjust settings accordingly.

Of course, these kinds of scenarios require other infrastructure changes. For example, radio frequency identification tags must be small and cheap enough to be built into product packaging and clothing. Scanners must be built into the appliances, so they can read the data off each RFID tag. And rules must be established to protect consumer privacy, so individuals can choose who gets to know what's inside their freezers, laundry baskets, and medicine cabinets. But such changes are already happening. For example, London-based packaging giant Rexam has begun putting RFID chips inside pharmaceutical bottles to track drug batches and thwart counterfeiters.

For builders, installing a smart appliance isn't all that much different than installing a dumb one. But offering such amenities to prospective homeowners can offer a competitive edge, especially for builders of vacation or resort developments.

“It's more of a benefit that builders can sell to homeowners, so they can say, ‘If you have a wireless network, you can set up your refrigerator to work on it, too,' ” says Dolnick. “It's a luxury feature that makes sense to people, and a great way to set your project above the rest.”

The wisest thing builders can do to enable smart homes is make sure a robust network infrastructure is laid in along with the plumbing and the electrical.

“I don't think prewiring for appliances is vital,” says Seamons. “The thing that's vital is to prewire for the entertainment network those appliances will communicate with. That's the mission-critical app for the home. Builders definitely need to embrace the mentality of a structured bundle of Cat-5 and co-ax to every room in the house. No matter how good your wireless is, it will never equal a wired, 100-megabit connection.”

SHOWER SMART: Kohler's DTV Custom Showering System means programmable cleanliness.

On the other hand, Herb Hauser believes you can't have too much bandwidth or too many connected appliances. The president of Midtown Technologies, an engineering and consulting firm for high-end real estate developments, Hauser advises builders to run fiber-optic connections to at least two rooms in high-end homes: the home theater and entertainment center, and the den or home office.

“I also believe appliances and mechanical spaces should be wired,” says Hauser. “I would not hesitate to bring Cat-5 wiring to the washer, dryer, kitchen or the furnace. It will make systems more efficient and useful. You could have a furnace that gets on the Net and sends an e-mail to the maintenance company, saying the points on the igniters aren't gapped properly, please send service.”

For most buyers, the next-generation home is still a bit of a chicken-and-egg scenario. Major appliance makers are waiting for consumers to ask for smart devices. Consumers want to be shown what these things can do before agreeing to pay extra for them.

In many cases, new home buyers will end up with smart kitchens by default. “I think the low-hanging fruit is the new home build, where the equipment and labor costs can be amortized into the mortgage,” says Kurt Scherf, principal analyst for Parks Associates.

At the high end, where money isn't a factor, it's a different story, says Stene. The buyers want everything, and they want it now. Then it becomes a matter of pinning down what they actually want the stuff to do. The Connect Io Intelligent Oven, for instance, is certainly expensive. The main product, a double oven with a refrigeration feature, runs $6,495, but builders are finding ways to put the oven within reach.

Patrick King, president of King Family Homes, a custom builder in Cloverdale, Calif., says his standard oven runs about $2,200, so he gives home buyers a credit for that amount.

“With the credit, the oven is just a $4,300 upgrade, something that most people are willing to spend,” says King.

For now, King says he's showing the Connect Io in his model homes and is offering it as an upgrade. The oven runs over an 802.11 wireless connection, and later this year King will package the Connect Io with LifeWare home-automation software.

While King Family Homes offers buyers credits, Laing Luxury Homes in Newport Beach, Calif., simply offers the Io as an upgrade. Laing Luxury started offering the Connect Io last summer, the first builder to do so, says Joan Marcus-Colvin, the builder's vice president of sales, marketing, and design studio. She says Laing Luxury offers the Io at two communities: Sea Crest at Crystal Cove, which features $5 million to $9 million homes in Newport Beach; and Icon at Playa Vista in Los Angeles, where homes run about $1.5 million to about $2 million.

“This product is perfect for the kind of people who are crazy about technology, and want to call their ovens from their cell phones,” she says.

Such technology is destined to trickle down quickly, says Seamons. “I would be surprised if it takes more than five years for the whole world of connected appliances to become an expected part of custom homes,” he says.

COOL FRIDGE: Samsung offers the $3,500 Wireless ICE (Interactive, Communication, Entertainment) Refrigerator.

Hauser says baby boomers will drive a big part of the smart-appliance revolution, as they seek to live out their retirements with the same kind of ubiquitous connectivity they've come to expect in their working lives.

“This was the real promise of technology. It wasn't supposed to be about getting e-mail when you're inside the Grand Canyon,” says Hauser. “Information was supposed to improve people's lives. And now we're finally beginning to get there.”

Dan Tynan writes “Gadget Freak” for PC World and “TechSmart” for US Airways Magazine. Steve Zurier, senior technology editor for BUILDER magazine, contributed to this article.

Inside the Dream Kitchen

In January, the Internet Home Alliance Research Council (www.caba.org/iha) surveyed 600 homeowners in the United States and Canada about what they want inside their kitchens that isn't there now. At least one in four picked the following services:

DIGITAL WISH LIST: Home buyers say they want smarter kitchens.

• Digital calendar. A central point (most likely the refrigerator) where they can keep track of soccer matches, ballet recitals, PTA meetings, and golf dates—and then check it later from the Internet.
  
• Recipe projector. A database that can be accessed at a moment's notice is nice; even better is some way to project a recipe on the wall, so they don't have to stop sauteing to see what the next ingredient is.
  
• Energy controls. Consumers want a way to monitor how much juice they're using by appliance, room, or even outlet, so they can calculate peak demand periods and reduce waste.
  
• HVAC/security monitor. A central station where homeowners can crank down the AC or turn up the heat, while keeping an eye on the kids playing in the backyard or the Land Rover in the driveway.
  
• Universal charging station. One place to plug in all those cell phones, iPods, and assorted digital devices that take up all the available AC outlets (a feature Whirlpool is building into its new line of CentralPark refrigerators, due out later this year).
  
• Wireless Internet. Consumers don't necessarily want a Web portal built into their fridges, but they do want to bring their laptops and PDAs with them when they come in for a snack.

© Digital Home Magazine 2007