Smart appliances to make life easier in every room of your home.
When it comes to smart home devices, you probably think of wi-fi air conditioners, video doorbells, security cameras, smart lights, water sensors and robotic vacuum cleaners.
These are all popular products indeed, as they’re affordable, easy to install and you can control them with an app on your phone or tablet (or your voice through a smart speaker). But you might not know larger appliances have also gone high tech, in both the kitchen and laundry room, adding several connected conveniences.
As long as you have wi-fi at home and one of these connected appliances, you can take advantage of the following benefits, though keep in mind that not all models offer the same features.
Control and convenience
Smart appliances are designed to make your life easier, and that includes the ability to control and monitor them from anywhere in the home.
For example, while watching TV on the sofa, simply tap an app on your phone to preheat the oven for dinner. Or, while getting the kids dressed for school, ask your smart speaker how much time is left on the dryer. And you might get a notification on your smartphone or smartwatch that the dishwasher cycle is done. You get the idea.
While this sounds like science fiction, it’s available now. Some brands even let you use your mobile device to send multiple cooking instructions to the oven all at once. Others have a touch screen that learns, adapts and suggests customised presets based on your family’s routines.
Improved energy efficiency
Because you can automate tasks – such as what time of the day you want the washing machine to run – you can schedule them for off-peak hours, for instance, when electricity is less expensive or if you have solar panels, during high-solar generation periods (although these newer appliances are very energy efficient already).
Speaking of saving energy, LG’s InstaView appliances, such as some of its refrigerators and range ovens, let you knock twice on the glass to see inside, which eliminates the need to open the door and let out the cool or hot air.
And Samsung has a series of innovative Family Hub branded refrigerators that work with an app to let you see inside your fridge (via a camera) when you’re, say, at a Costco warehouse and you can’t remember if you need milk, eggs or cheese. In addition, a large LED touch screen on the fridge can serve as a digital corkboard, recipe book, photo album, music player and more.
Interconnectivity
Because smart appliances are connected to the internet, you can set up a mesh network, or home hub, to streamline management. This will allow you to ‘talk’ to your appliances – and your appliances to ‘talk’ to each other – which is useful for monitoring usage and coordinating household chores efficiently.
Using a home hub, you can even connect capable appliances via Bluetooth 4.0, which won’t impact your home wi-fi network. The other alternative is to purchase a suite of appliances from a particular brand that all connect via the same app on your phone.
Smart servicing
Alerts
Some appliances send helpful alerts to your mobile device to let you know if there’s an issue that may affect performance, followed by step by step instructions (and how-to videos) to guide you through quick fixes.
Help
If it needs professional attention, a connected appliance can often ‘talk’ to its company over the internet to assess the issue, without the need to pay for a technician to come and diagnose it. Now that’s smart.
