If you’re struggling to get organized but are somewhat tech-savvy, why not turn to your white goods to help you out.
Smart appliances are net-connected home appliances whose aim is to save you time or money and to help you be more organized. Appliances such as dishwashers, ovens, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners and more are set to be your best buddy when it comes to organizing your home by helping to simplify tasks such as cooking and cleaning.
So how exactly do they help?
They save you money
Appliances such as dishwashers, washers and dryers receive a signal from a smart meter that is available from many utility companies. These meters tell the appliance when the electric rates are the lowest and so cycles are delayed until that time. They will start up all by themselves outside of peak hours to make energy savings automatically. Studies show that smart appliances can save you up to 20% of your energy bill.
You can of course override the programming at any time if you are in a rush. In this case smart meters ensure that appliances run on the most energy-efficient cycle.
How about an intelligent toilet that will adjust the flush depending on how long you’ve been sat there?!
Home energy management systems allow you to see your home’s energy usage at a glance. There is no longer any need to wait until the bill drops through the door to find out that you’ve used 10 times more than you thought. By seeing what you used today you can amend what you use tomorrow.
They save you time
Some smart appliances do the work for you. The LG HOM-BOT is a robotic vacuum cleaner. It uses a combination of cameras and sensors to map out your floor. It then remembers the floor plan, will vacuum automatically for 90 minutes and then return to its station to recharge. Take a look:
They help you get more organized
Interact with your appliances remotely
Be alerted via your Smartphone when your:
“oven is pre-heated, when cooking is finished or when a load of clothes in the dryer has completed its cycle.”
Via: Mashable.com
You can then control the appliance by returning a command, say for example, to turn your oven over onto warming mode if you’re not quite ready to eat.
Manage your food remotely
Interact with your fridge from the store. Check what you’ve got in there and when it’s due to expire all via your Smartphone. No longer does shopping need to be a guessing game if you haven’t had time to plan properly.
Organize family life from your refrigerator
A wi-fi enabled 8″ LCD screen loaded with apps – it doesn’t sound like a refrigerator does it? But it is. This innovative design from Samsung turns your refrigerator into a command center. There are apps for a calendar, a notepad, recipes, photo sharing, weather, news and music. So use the refrigerator to turn on the music, to find and display a yummy recipe to cook, to share a photo of the end result, to note down any used up ingredients and to diarize a dinner date with your friends when you can cook the dish for them.
Let your appliances tell you when they need repairing
By connecting all the gadgets in your home together to one central hub you make your home more efficient. The hub monitors them all for you and lets you know of any problems, such as the television breaking down to a light bulb needing changing, all via your Smartphone. It will even fix software problems for you where it can.
So what else will you see in your ‘house of tomorrow’?
According to The Columbus Dispatch you can look forward to:
Organizing your refrigerator
“Future fridges will go further, using sensors to weigh and monitor products as you use them.”
They will also self-scan to determine what is missing and therefore what needs ordering. They will even be able to move items that will expire the quickest to the front of the fridge. Wow!
Organizing your recipes
If your smart fridge or oven has taken over as your recipe organizer, you will probably want to avoid getting sticky fingers on the touch-screens. Mini projectors will help by creating holographic recipes. Cool!
Organizing your electric cables
Trying to keep your electric cables in check will become a thing of the past with cord-free countertops. These transfer energy to cordless appliances such as toasters, laptops and even cooking pans. Imagine no more dedicated cooking area.
Do you have a Smartphone already?
As you can see a Smartphone or Tablet is going to become an essential tool for smartly managing your home life. It remains to be seen how many people can afford to replace all their appliances with ‘smart’ versions however!