House of the Future
The home of the future will be smarter, cleaner and more serene, thanks to a new generation of stylish appliances that truly earn their keep.
Having danced around the edges of technology for a decade, manufacturers are taking the plunge. Keeping house in the new millennium, they promise, will be less work with a robotic vacuum cleaner. A computer in the kitchen will be the command center for the entire house. Alarm clocks that simulate sunrise and bird chirps could be just the thing for a Zen-like wake-up.
“This is not the futuristic Jetsons’ kitchen, but a real application of technology,” said Peter Giannetti, editor of New York’s HomeWorld Business, a trade magazine covering the housewares industry that opens its International Housewares Show in Chicago’s McCormick Place on Sunday.
“We are looking at the emergence of the smart house, and the core of much of this will be housewares used on a daily basis,” he said. “We are moving very fast into a high-tech environment.”
The industry is rolling out appliances, large and small, for nearly every room of the house, assisted by a high-tech array of computer chips, computer design techniques, super-efficiency filters, natural spectrum lights and new robotics. The results are functional and artistic, aimed at comfort-seeking baby-boomer nesters and computer and gadget-savvy Generation Xers, who are renting their first apartments or buying first homes. The appliances focus on four lifestyle themes: the kitchen, master bedroom, living room and home office.
“People want control over their lives, and they want to communicate easily, reach things easily and get tasks done fast,” said Elissa Moses, director of global consumer and market intelligence for giant Philips Electronics in New York. “In the 1950s, a dishwasher and television defined the good life. Today it’s a home cinema system connected to a home office that ties you into the world.”
Philips recently produced a “House of the Near Future,” a traveling exhibit of prototype housewares, to get feedback on what consumers do and don’t want.
Timing is everything.
“When consumers wanted a coffee maker to go on automatically, the industry developed one,” Giannetti said. “Now we are looking at Generation X, or Y, as the emerging consumers. They have grown up with computers and are comfortable with technology. A 20-year-old might expect a home that is so integrated that when you get home at night, dinner is cooked, coffee is perking and the climate is automatically regulated.”
Although that picture is still on the horizon, there are plenty of indicators already popping up. Here’s a quick tour of today’s evolving house and sample products that are either in the market or on their way:
Kitchen as Command Post
The kitchen, already the home’s central gathering place, also will become the central command station, linked by a communication center to every room in the house.
“You are seeing the beginning of interactivity electronics such as kitchen computer centers linked to shopping sites and cooking programs,” Giannetti said.
One of the leaders in the interactive race is CMI Worldwide in Seattle, which bills itself as “your kitchen lifestyle company.” The company has combined TV and computer technologies for its new Icebox (information, communications, entertainment-box) appliance.
It is designed for the kitchen because that’s where 70% of all decisions are made regarding home, health and nutrition, said Heidi Mikkelsen, CMI project coordinator.
“The concept is revolutionary,” she said. “It combines the features of TV, video and audio CDs, stereo and home security. Add easy Internet access for e-mail, shopping and information.”
The cook in the kitchen can shift the screen from a room-by-room video to an appliance monitor, to CDs that feature chefs with tips on whatever meal is being prepared. It’s packaged in a compact case with kitchen-proof (that means waterproof and grease resistant) keyboard and remote control. Sized to fit on a kitchen counter. The counter model will retail for $500 when it hits the market in late April.
On a more familiar note, new kitchen products will be easier to clean, self-regulating and self-monitoring. Indoor grills utilizing infrared technology are energy efficient and cook faster and more efficiently. A glass toaster, which was introduced as a prototype this year by Philips Electronics, was a huge hit with consumers, who liked being able to tell if the toast was burning.
Master Suite as
Relaxation Center
The master bedroom will combine with a bathroom to create a health and relaxation center that is soothing, climate controlled and allergy free.
Health is in. As baby boomers continue to move along the timeline, the emphasis on healthy living (“the new era of personal wellness” is one label for the 21st Century) is manifested at all levels, from better toothbrushes to kits that test water for pesticides, and cutting-edge air cleaners.
“We are heavily on top of the health market,” said Liz Morton, spokeswoman for Stamford, Conn.-based Verilux, the “healthy lighting company,” which has evolved from making full-spectrum lighting tubes for the art industry to consumer products.
The business recently introduced the Rise & Shine natural alarm clock, a table lamp that simulates sunrise and sunset and features sound therapy (options include birds, wind, rain with thunder and whales with surf). Priced at about $200, it uses a natural spectrum lightbulb, meaning it contains an element that filters out the excessive yellow part of the spectrum, resulting in a healthier, more natural white light.
A new upscale line of plug-in air cleaners from HealthWay in Syracuse, N.Y., which focuses on solutions to indoor air pollution, features new technology and a sleek decorative design.
William Schuettenberg, vice president of HealthWay, says its exclusive technology is “driving the wellness focus” in the residential air cleaner market.
“This technology kills airborne microorganisms such as virus and bacteria--it’s a technology used in hospital operating suites,” Schuettenberg said. It surpasses HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Air), he said, which has been the standard up to now.
Living and Family
Rooms May Meet
The living room walls may come down to combine with the family room in a multifunctional living area incorporating a private screening room with a home theater system. Artwork, which continues to be an important element of home decor, is becoming more than a picture in a frame. Computer-chip technology allows art pieces to be personally designed, perhaps in moving images, or the realism of a picture window complete with an outdoor garden.
Lighting, too, is becoming a design consideration. LumiSource Inc., in Elk Grove Village, Ill., has introduced the Sculptured Electra Plasma Lamp of handblown glass that passes electric charges through a blend of inert gases creating ever-changing arcs of lighting.
“It’s always changing shapes and colors,” spokeswoman Maria Sakowicz said. The lamps--priced between about $120 and $180, depending on size--become glass sculptures when turned off.
For living room comfort, sensor technology will monitor temperature and moisture, and a new generation of vacuum cleaners will maintain strict air quality standards.
“We are really focusing on technology that meets consumer needs, and right now consumers are concerned about the air in their homes and sanitizing surfaces,” said Kathy Luedke, spokeswoman for Eureka, a leading floor-care manufacturer based in Bloomington, Ill. “No one wants E. coli.”
Eureka has addressed the problem of air filtration with an HEPA sealed filtration system, she said. Looking ahead, they are getting favorable attention with a robotic vacuum prototype.
“It’s got sonar technology and vacuums on its own,” Luedke said. “Just take it off the recharging stand, and it heads for a wall, detects it, stops and works its way around the perimeter of the room, going around chair legs, couch legs and lamps. Then it randomly zigzags and keeps working until you pick it up or it runs out of steam.”
The company is testing the robot in the industry, she said, with the intention of marketing it, although there is no production schedule yet.
“It’s such a different product we wanted people to look at it,” Luedke said. “We’re getting lots of calls saying, ‘I want it.’ ”
Home Office as
Design Statement
The home office will be upgraded from the extra bedroom where the computer was stashed to a sleek “must have” sanctuary with personalized custom furniture in elegant colors, wood tones and glass. Multidimensional desks offer a computer screen on one side and a TV on the other.
With a growing number of people working at home (currently estimated at between 50 million and 60 million) computer-friendly tables, modules and workstations are turning up in a dazzling array of styles.
“It’s not just a table to sit something on anymore,” said Karen Acuna at Studio RTA in Vernon, Calif., whose line of affordable ($100 to $250) home office furniture has become increasingly trendy. “The furniture used to be bland and standard, and now it’s customized for a personal look. There’s an emphasis on fashion and design.”
“Design” is a secondary theme running through the new housewares.
“The new design direction brings out the human personality in the product,” said Nan Powell, of San Francisco’s Verge Research, who was a judge for the Housewares Assn.’s National Student Design Competition. The student work foreshadowed things to come and showed the challenge of combining the synthetic and the human, she said.
“There was a device that would enable you to cook a meal on the table, and a storage unit to keep all the elements of your garage in one place on wheels,” she said.
Powell liked the humanity that showed the young designers were thinking beyond mere technology.
“There is a lot of knowledge needed to infuse this stuff into our everyday lives,” she said.
In fact, says Elissa Moses of Philips Electronics, the home of the future will start to resemble the home of the past as we receive the next generation of appliances.
“People understand that technology is changing exponentially, whether they want it or not,” Moses said. “Twenty years ago you would never have dreamed everyone would be walking down the street with a cellular phone.”
What pleased her about the Philips’ House of the Near Future was the whimsy of the spectrum of products, Moses said.
“As a trend watcher, it gives me a sense of optimism about the way the world is spinning.”
Connie Koenenn can be reached at connie.koenenn@latimes.com.
