Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 38

TE CH S A VVY
Smart Products Can
See and Learn
Artificial intelligence is empowering
appliances to save us time and take
over repetitive tasks
IT'S WELL KNOWN THAT smart audio speakers
recognize voices and can distinguish among different
voices, so it wasn't a big surprise when it
became possible to control appliances with voice.
What is a really big surprise is that computer vision
- also known as image recognition - can now control
appliances. I had a conversation with Shawn
Stover, executive director of Smart Home Solutions
at GE Appliances (GEA) recently about the
company's partnership with Google Cloud and
how that changes things for the kitchen industry.
INTERACTING WITH SMART APPLIANCES
Stover described customer experiences that would
be more like those we have with our smartphones:
seamless and intuitive. For example, the process
of roasting a chicken typically starts by looking
up a recipe, setting the oven to bake at a certain
temperature, putting the chicken in the oven and
then taking it out when the timer goes off . Compare
this to popping a chicken in the oven, and
then the camera inside sees that it's a chicken,
cooks it perfectly at the set temperature and then
turns the oven temperature down or off . Artifi cial
intelligence (AI) automates the task.
Additionally, appliance software updates will
happen just like smartphone updates, and our
appliances will get improved functions and all
new ones, too. Th is past April, GEA sent software
wirelessly to 200,000 owners of their ovens, adding
air fry capabilities. Computer vision will make
controlling appliances easier by cutting down on
the use of touch pads and knobs. Kitchen designers
will be able to use this groundbreaking new
technology to help clients design and build their
kitchen for today's lifestyle and tomorrow's.
GETTING PERSONAL
Data is a key to AI. With online connections,
things can be recorded like service calls for the appliance,
its usage, our interactions with appliances
and an appliance's interactions with others - like
a cooking surface automatically telling a hood
vent to turn on. I'd love to know where the cook
38
SCOTT KOEHLER is
a 27-year veteran of
the kitchen and bath
industry and owner of
Dream Kitchen Builders,
a design-build fi rm
doing business in North
Carolina.
ABOVE RIGHT From identifying
ingredients to compiling
grocery shopping lists, kitchen
appliance capabilities are
expanding.
goes next after getting something out of the refrigerator, which is likely an
often-used traffi c pattern that could help determine a new design. Th is kind
of information will be tremendously helpful to kitchen designers, and I can
imagine a whole new range of opportunities to personalize designs based
on information that online connections will provide.
Appliances up until now have been designed for specifi c kinds of cooking
or preserving. And now we're seeing a new breed of appliances enabled
by AI that will learn and evolve their capabilities so that they will work for
our lifestyles and the changes we make over time. Stover believes that this
new breed of appliances will work for a family through diff erent lifecycles.
For example, a young family needs solutions for warming milk and baby
formula in bottles, but soon the children get older and want smoothies in
thermoses. It's not baby clothes in the washer and dryer anymore, it's a
soccer uniform and muddy jeans. Functions and features added over time
can be considered extreme personalization. With training, an oven will be
able to tell the diff erence between a chicken and a turkey, and the washer
will know the diff erence between a pair of jeans and a pair of corduroys. In
the very near future, we will see appliances that are easier to use, take over
repetitive tasks and improve performance over time.
MACHINE LEARNING IN A NUTSHELL
Machine learning (ML) is the science of getting computers to act without
being explicitly programmed. Dr. Fei-Fei Li, professor of computer science
at Stanford and VP of Google Cloud, is the genius behind computer vision,
an ML subset of AI. Her work is about training computers to recognize
images so they can accurately predict what they are seeing.
In our industry, a practical example of computer vision is appliances being
able to recognize fruits and vegetables. Google Cloud's view is the world, and
an appliance maker's view is basically the home, according to Stover. Th is
means Google Cloud brings a broader library of data in the form of images
to the partnership. Without it, GEA would need to train computers to recognize
foods. Appliances that can visually identify foods and take voice commands
are changing the rules of the kitchen game, aff ording us appliances
that are easier to use, improve performance and take over repetitive tasks.
PERSONAL DATA PRIVACY
It's almost impossible to talk about connecting devices online and cloud
computing without having a conversation about personal data privacy. Stover
explained that GEA attained the Gold Level IOT Security Rating from
UL and was the fi rst appliance maker to do so. Th e rating means GEA meets
critical benchmarks for cybersecurity and consumer data protection. He said
data privacy is part of GEA's core, and the brand builds it into its appliances.
Appliances are becoming more like smartphones and self-driving cars in
that they are as much about software as they are about physical machines.
Th ese new home automation capabilities will augment our own abilities in
the kitchen in a very personalized way, which will save us time and enable
us to live in our own homes longer.

/ NOV.-DEC. 2021 / KBBONLINE.COM / Th e offi cial publication of NKBA (NKBA.org) and KBIS (KBIS.com)
http://www.KBBONLINE.COM http://www.NKBA.org http://www.KBIS.com

Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021

Editor's Note
KBIS Note
NKBA Note
Happenings
Trends
NKBA Thirty Under 30
KBIS 2022
Tech Savvy
Hot Topic
Favorites
Before & After
Wellness Design
Dealer Dish
Color Find
What's Hot
Learning Corner
Last Word
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - Intro
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - Cover1
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - Cover2
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 1
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 2
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 3
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 4
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 5
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - Editor's Note
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 7
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - KBIS Note
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 9
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - NKBA Note
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 11
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - Happenings
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 13
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 14
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 15
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - Trends
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 17
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 18
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 19
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - NKBA Thirty Under 30
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 21
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 22
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 23
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 24
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 25
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 26
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 27
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 28
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 29
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - KBIS 2022
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 31
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 32
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 33
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 34
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 35
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 36
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 37
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - Tech Savvy
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 39
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - Hot Topic
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - Favorites
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - Before & After
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 43
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - Wellness Design
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 45
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - Dealer Dish
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 47
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - Color Find
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 49
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - What's Hot
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 51
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 52
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 53
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 54
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 55
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 56
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 57
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 58
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 59
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 60
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 61
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - 62
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - Learning Corner
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - Last Word
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - Cover3
Kitchen & Bath Business November/December 2021 - Cover4
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