Kitchen & Bath Business - November/December 2017 - 14

Tech Savvy

Tomorrow's
Home

1. The PantryChic Store &

Dispense System reinvents
ingredient storage, recipe
preparation and pantry organization by automatically
dispensing the perfect amount
of each ingredient directly from
SmartCanisters into your bowl.

The Smart Kitchen Summit
2017 revealed trends in the
housing technology industry

HOMEOWNERS HAVE STARTED EXPECTING

in their newbuild residences and remodels, and recent innovations - particularly in the kitchen - are meeting
the demand. The Smart Kitchen Summit 2017,
which took place this October in Seattle, showed
just how close manufacturers, inventors and startups already are to creating the in-tune home for
which home consumers are looking.
According to Rebecca Chesney, a research director with the Food Futures Lab at the Institute
for the Future in Palo Alto, Calif., the kitchen
has always been one of the first places society has
embraced technology. The introductions of the
microwave and dishwasher changed not only how
kitchens are designed but also the basic ways we
cook and clean. Chesney fully expects the debut
of connected features in the kitchen to make just
as big a difference in homes and lives.
CONNECTED HOME FEATURES

INTERNET OF INFORMATION

Gartner, Inc., an American technology research
firm, forecasts that 8.4 billion connected things
will be in use worldwide this year, and this number
will reach 20.4 billion by 2020. In comparison, the
United Nations estimates that the current global
population is roughly 7.6 billion people.
There are so many of these devices because manufacturers have gradually been adding technology
to things we already use, ranging from cars to slow
cookers to watches and ovens. Cheap computation
is helping drive advances in artificial intelligence
(AI) and machine intelligence, as well as simplifying the ability to embed objects with connectivity.
"Advances across technology will reveal a world in
which inanimate objects speak to us and machines
act on our behalf," said Chesney, hinting at what
innovators are currently working on for the home.

2. FreshFridge is a wire-

less food storage system
that monitors, records and
transmits measurements
inside containers to remotely
networked devices, creating
an accurate and automated
log of exposure to temperature
variations over time.

3. Chefling keeps track of

your ingredients using image
recognition and receipt
scanning, suggests recipes
based on those ingredients
and automatically creates a
shopping list with the other
ingredients needed.

4. The Control4 Smart

Home System is designed to
control and automate more
than 10,700 devices in the
connected home. The system can trigger actions from
multiple devices simultaneously so homeowners can
integrate their cooking and
food preparation experience
directly into their kitchen
scenes, i.e., the command
to turn on the kitchen also
starts playing music and
lowers air temperature.

5. NXP's oven prototype is an
intelligent cooking appliance
concept using solid-state
radio frequency (RF) energy.
Solid-state RF advantages include more controlled heating
energy directed into various
food types simultaneously.
This enables precise, higherquality cooking results with
improved consistency, taste
and nutrition.

6. The Dialog Oven from

Miele uses electromagnetic
waves to cook different fresh
ingredients for a complete
meal simultaneously and up to
70 percent faster than conventional cooking methods. The
oven will launch in April 2018.

FROM SMART TO ACTIONABLE

The AI Chesney references may not include robots that cook a full meal unassisted, but it will encompass appliances that can automatically down-

BY ERINN LOUCKS

load their own updates and order essentials, such as detergent or a frequently
used grocery item. These machines will be able to report on their energy use
and intuitively know how to lower costs, and they can help homeowners
decide what to cook based on ingredients it knows they have.
To avoid the inevitable fear of losing control over AI, there will always
be a mix of human judgment and algorithm judgment. Homeowners will
theoretically be as much or as little involved as they want, but there are likely
to be three methods of programming in the smart home:
"Consensual Control: The system will warn the homeowner when energy use
is high or that something needs to be fixed, upgraded or ordered, and then
the homeowner will take action.
"Monitored Control: Motivated both by energy use and comfort, this type of
system will consider programmed preferences by the homeowner before
taking automatic actions. In this case, the homeowner more than likely will
be notified when an action has already been taken.
"Adaptive Automatic Design: This type of home programming would go all
the way and automatically change temperatures and order needed products
without notifying the homeowner.
All these hypothetical kitchen scenarios will cater more specifically to the
homeowners' values than residences do today. Appliances, apps, layouts and
even furniture could contribute to different priorities, such as wasting less or
cooking like a professional chef. Wastebasket sensors - already on the commercial market - help monitor what and how much is thrown away, while
smart appliances like Miele's newly announced Dialog Oven offer features
that make complicated recipes simple for the at-home chef.
"We need to think beyond convenience, efficiency and taste,"said Chesney.
"We want to instead design a kitchen that enables."


Kitchen & Bath Business / NOV.-DEC. 2017 / KBBONLINE.COM / The official publication of KBIS (KBIS.com)

http://www.KBBONLINE.COM http://www.KBIS.com

Kitchen & Bath Business - November/December 2017

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