How Smart is the Kitchen in Your Smithtown Home?

Smithtown home buyers walk into a house with lots of questions. How much square footage does it have? How many bathrooms are there? Does the backyard have a fence? But soon they may be adding a new question to that list: How smart is the kitchen in your Smithtown home?

With the spike in smartphone popularity, people have higher expectations for all the machines in their lives, including kitchen appliances. For example, a Siemens refrigerator (currently in the concept stage) may one day eliminate the need to call home and ask, “Do we need milk?” The new model comes equipped with Wi-Fi and multiple cameras mounted inside it which will allow people to use a smartphone app to visually scan their refrigerator shelves, even while they’re standing in the dairy aisle at a grocery store across town.

New appliances are also smart enough to save a few bucks. Whirlpool has developed a new line of appliances called 6th Sense Live, and they’re designed to run when energy prices are lowest. Using a Wi-Fi connection, a dishwasher could start its own cycle at whatever point in the day it determines that energy prices are lowest. (It does this by using a constantly updated database of real-time energy prices.) LG has developed appliances with remote diagnostic services. It’s called “Smart Diagnosis,” and it works by allowing the broken appliance to “talk” to a smartphone app by playing a certain sound. The app can “decode” the tone it hears and give the owner instructions on what to do next. 

Kitchens aren’t the only room of the house where “smart” reigns supreme. Laundry rooms are also being revolutionized by the technological wave. GE has a dryer that automatically gets messages from the washer about the load it will soon receive. By customizing the cycle, clothes aren’t as likely to overdry. 

Samsung and LG, both based in South Korea, are on the leading edge of smart appliances. Samsung is best known for its high-tech refrigerators that feature a touch-screen. Wolf and Sub-Zero both have a few appliance models capable of communicating with smartphones. But some manufacturers, like Bosch, are holding Sense Live, and they’re designed to run when energy off until the appliance industry institutes a standard way for all smart appliances to communicate.

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