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LAS VEGAS
— Is your refrigerator running? If you don’t know,
just ask it.
A vision
of the future is now taking shape that will allow for
communication with the ever-increasing number of gadgets
in people’s homes: A refrigerator suggests recipes
based on its contents and keeps track of when the milk
is going to expire. A wall-mounted sensor detects when a
person leaves the house and turns down the temperature
to a preset level. A homeowner who forgets to close the
garage door can do so from across town via a smartphone
application.
All of
these capabilities are available now and on display here
at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show,
where companies trying harder than ever to advance their
vision of a truly connected home that encompasses
entertainment devices, appliances, energy and security.
“Last
year there was a lot of trialing” around the idea of
home control systems, said John Burke, general manager
of converged experiences at Libertyville, Calif.-based
Motorola Mobility, which builds this technology for
cable operators and other service providers. “This
year, it’s more of a mainstay core staple service.
There’s a lot of runway ahead of it.”
Companies
at CES say mainstream adoption of connected home
technology is gaining momentum but still several years
away, aided by several broader shifts in the consumer
technology industry. For starters, an increasing number
of devices come with built-in Wi-Fi capability, allowing
an easy link with the Internet and with each other.
According to the Wi-Fi Alliance, an industry group,
shipments of Wi-Fi devices hit almost 1.1 billion in
2011 and will double by 2015. These gadgets include not
just TVs and gaming consoles, but smart meters and home
automation products.
“The
home is the first place where you have a truly
wirelessly connected environment,” said Sachin Lawande,
chief technology officer of audio company Harman.
The
increasing primacy of the smartphone and tablet computer
also are driving the connected home movement. Because
consumers have these powerful mobile computers with them
at all times, the gadgets can act as a central and
portable control panel for managing a wide range of
machines.
“The
smartphone has been the linchpin of much of this
connectivity,” said Tim Baxter, president of Samsung
Electronics America. At CES, Samsung showed off a
washing machine that can be controlled and monitored
remotely with a smartphone application.
A tablet,
meanwhile, can be mounted on the wall or carried around
the home, providing another way for consumers to adjust
the thermostat or track how much electricity their
washing machine is using — all from one device that is
familiar and easy to use.
“We
believe it’s important to get integrated with the
screens that are in consumers’ homes,” said Jason
Few, president of Reliant Energy, a Houston-based
electricity services provider that has a smart energy
monitor and related technology on display at CES. “We
don’t believe a thermostat is going to be a screen in
a person’s home. … If we make it complicated, people
won’t use it — and we’re in a category where
we’re trying to get people to use it for the first
time.”
One smart
home technology company, Massachusetts-based Savant, has
built its entire product line around Apple products.
Homeowners can use an iPad to pipe music through the
house, dim the lights or raise window shades.
“Apple
has taught the masses how to use a touch screen,” said
Craig Spinner, Savant’s director of marketing.
“We’re trying to ride the coattails of what
Apple’s done.”
Price
remains a hurdle, Spinner acknowledged. Installing the
company’s system in a three-bedroom home can cost
between $10,000 and $12,000. But Spinner pointed to big
service providers such as Comcast and ADT who are
starting to offer smart home automation.
Parks
Associates, a consumer technology research firm,
estimates that more than 10 million U.S. households will
have a remote monitoring and control system by 2014.
Motorola
Mobility’s Burke, who counts operators such as Comcast
and Verizon Wireless as customers, said he believes
consumers will embrace new services if they come bundled
with existing subscriptions because they can sign up for
one package.
“We’ve
seen all the major operators in the Americas putting
home security, control and monitoring in their
offerings,” Burke said.
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Among big
technology companies at CES, LG showed off a new smart
refrigerator that has a small screen on the front and
also has a smartphone app. Using a phone’s camera, one
can scan a grocery receipt or product and the fridge
then keeps a record of its contents, including when an
item was bought, and thus when it is likely to expire.
Members of a household can also input personal health
information such as age, blood pressure and allergies
and the refrigerator suggests daily and weekly meal
plans customized to each person.
On the
more affordable end of the smart home spectrum, Sears
Holding Corp.’s Craftsman brand recently launched a
two-way garage door opener that connects with a
homeowner’s smartphone. The product starts at $289.99
and comes with a small unit that plugs into a wireless
router with an ethernet cable. A passcode-protected
smartphone app calls up information on whether the
garage door is open and how long it’s been open.
Swiping a finger across the screen controls the door.
Kris
Malkoski, vice president and general manager of
Craftsman, said she believes the industry is still three
to five years away from reaching consensus on technology
standards that will enable true interoperability between
connected home devices. Craftsman’s focus will be on
products that are accessible, both in terms of usage and
price, she said. The company plans to incorporate its
“AssureLink” technology, which powers the new garage
door opener, into other gadgets and tools for the home.
“We’re
seeing momentum and we’re leading, but not with some
isolated product,” Malkoski said.
Google
Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, who appeared at CES on
Tuesday, said gadgets are yearning to talk to each
other. In his view, the ability to automate a
refrigerator or control lights remotely is simply how
consumer technology should behave.
“Computing
devices that are not on a network are lonely,” Schmidt
said.
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