Homes that really understand you, inbound from IFA

September 12th, 2013

Appliance News

More than a few innovations have been presented to the world at this year’s IFA technology expo in Berlin.  We’ve seen appliances of beautiful design, appliances with exciting and innovative special features, and appliances and gadgets offering visions of the future.

But no matter how good-looking or cleverly-designed these appliances are, you still need to put in the hard yards to get the most use out of them.  Wouldn’t it be better if your appliances were smarter, so they could run themselves without requiring excess effort from you?

Alas, domestic droids are not a practical option… yet

Well, that just might be a possibility.  Read on…

The Internet of Things

In recent years, the concept of “The Internet of Things” has been bandied about a fair bit.  While the phrase has different interpretations, the broad concept is that of integrating technology throughout the home, allowing every appliance and piece of electronics to communicate with one another, thus opening up a whole new world of functionality and efficiency.

Sound farfetched?  Maybe it is, but it’s not an impossibility.  Regardless, several appliance brands are developing products with this concept in mind, and several of these products were put on display at IFA 2013.

LG’s internet fridge

For an example of how a kitchen full of interconnected appliances could be handy, just look to this video from LG:

So let’s look at the key points here:

• The fridge is hooked up to Wi-Fi, along with several other LG appliances
• A smartphone app provides wireless control over the fridge’s smart functions from any location
• A Food Manager function lists what food is still in the fridge, and what’s been eaten
• A Grocery List can be accessed and updated from either the fridge or your phone, so you can always keep your food supply up to date, wherever you are
• A Recipe mode compares a list of ingredients to what’s currently in the fridge, and instantly adds what’s missing to the grocery list
• Your recipe can be sent directly to the LG Range Oven, which will automatically start preheating and set the timer so all you have to do is hit START

I can already see the upsides to this.  If I looked in the fridge and couldn’t find something I needed for tonight’s dinner, I could add it to the shopping list, right there and then.  Later on, at the shops, I could use my phone to tick off these items as I buy them.

Contrariwise, if I was out shopping for tonight’s dinner, rather than making a guess of what’s currently in the fridge (which could leave me missing a crucial ingredient) or just buying everything for a recipe anyway (which could lead to over-buying and the excess food going to waste), I could check what’s in the fridge on my app, work out a recipe that efficiently uses what’s available, then buy whatever else I needed.  Easy!

Panasonic’s Cloud concept

So if LG’s looking at the kitchen, what about the rest of the house?  Well, Panasonic has been having a good think about this and at IFA 2013 showed off their concept of the “Cloud” home.

Remember how excited everyone got when Apple brought out Siri for their various iThings?  Panasonic’s Cloud concept  essentially functions as a similar personal assistant, but is found throughout the house in every piece of electronics, not just on the phone or tablet.

We’ll let Appliances Online’s own Mike explain further:

So, what are the key points we’ve learned?

• Voice control means that rather than using apps and control panels, you can control your appliances just by chatting with them, like the computer on Star Trek
• Your appliances will alert you when environmental factors could interfere with household tasks (e.g. the washing machine mentioning that incoming rain could make line-drying the laundry problematic)
• The appliances will let you know when their cycles and jobs are completed, so you won’t forget about a household job and leave it half-finished (such as letting wet clothes sit in the machine for ages)

According to Panasonic, other uses for the Cloud include voice and gesture control over your home’s LED lighting, preheating the oven to sync up with the ETA of your dinner guests, and providing additional information about whatever you’re watching on TV.

I’m sure that there are plenty more creative ideas that can be imagined for the Cloud, and since Panasonic plans to work developing the concept for the next few years, there’s plenty of time for this potential to be realised.

Would you like to learn more?

For more news from IFA, whether it’s Smart appliances, energy-efficient appliances or great-looking appliances, check out the complete Appliances Online IFA playlist from Kev and Mike: