Latest home appliances make for smarter homes

MANILA, Philippines -  Who wants a bread toaster that greets you in the morning and a hair dryer that takes your blood pressure, too?

This year will see more home appliances — big and small — that can do more than cook, wash and entertain as major electronic brands add smart features to their appliances to also enable them to think.

Yes, think.

The kitchen, said to be the heart of every home, is destined to be the smartest part of the house as this is where most of the brainy appliances will be. From ovens that can take cellphone calls to refrigerators with Wi-Fi connectivity, home appliance manufacturers are pulling all the stops to bring the long-hyped but long-in-coming concept of connected homes a reality.

At the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas last month, the Connected Home pavilion featured the latest intelligent appliances from major manufacturers that are turning out millions of networked kitchen, lighting and other home appliances that can be remotely controlled by TVs, smartphones and PCs.

LG bannered its Thinq Technology for its full range of smart appliances that can be connected to a home Wi-Fi network and can be controlled using a smartphone or a PC. LG Thinq appliances are smart because they can generate energy consumption reports, suggest best operational hours relative to power rates, send maintenance and operational failure alerts to their owners’ online computers or smartphones, and a few other tricks while doing their main functions.

Home appliances that can go online and accessible to their owners via handheld devices seem to be the focus of ongoing research and developments. The concept has real-life applications. In the case of the LG Thinq refrigerator, its owner can access it via his or her smartphone for a quick food inventory while shopping for groceries.

Using their handheld devices, housewives can manage their smart appliances to do tasks like doing the laundry or cooking dinner even when they are not home. A smart washing machine, preloaded with laundry, detergent and automatically set to take and release water, can be instructed to run at the most cost-effective time of the day and to send alert messages to its owner’s smartphone or PC regarding state of washing cycles or snags in operation.

The same idea works with vacuum cleaners and smart ovens. At CES 2011, LG previewed a camera-equipped robot vacuum cleaner called the Hom-Bot that can be remotely operated using a smartphone. Because it has a camera, the Hom-Bot also provides a way for homeowners to check on their house while they are out. As for LG’s smart oven, that too can send a text message to its owner’s phone when a timed cooking or baking is completed. In addition, the oven can download pre-selected recipés from the home computer and display them on its own LCD screen for easy reference during actual cooking.

Fitting appliances with touch-screen LCD is also the trend. Appliances with displays allow users to see details of operations and energy use even without Wi-Fi connection. The display on the front of the LG Thinq refrigerator, for example, can show where specific food items have been stored for efficient retrieval and quick closing of the ref’s door to save energy. The touch screen can also display the number of times the homeowners have opened the refrigerator door and how much energy was consumed in the process. LG said its Thinq refrigerator can also learn to follow select voice commands in lieu of the touch screen. And with its improving IQ, it’s possible that one day it will also learn not to open its door to people who already had one bite or drink too many.