Smart home products that boggle the mind

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Published Date 5/22/2018

The yearly Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is always a veritable theme park of new gadgets, and this year’s event was no exception when it came to smart home products.

According to a Coldwell Banker survey done during the show, consumers are more interested in products that perform a practical function in the home rather than those that are purely for entertainment. They also say when looking for a new home, they prefer these gadgets to have already been installed.

From smart thermostats to smart fire and carbon monoxide detectors to smart locks and lighting systems, attendees went nuts over the latest evolution in smart-home tech is centered around voice control, which enables users to perform tasks by simply speaking commands. Furnishing these goodies are companies such as Kohler, Samsung, and LG. Kohler Konnect, for example, lets users operate the shower head and toilet with Amazon’s Alexa. And as you get ready for work, you can just talk into your mirror, asking it to display weather and traffic updates.

The LG and Samsung SmartThings platform showed how voice-control products can be used to operate a home’s appliances, with branded as well as third-party connected devices display a video feed of who’s at the front door on a television screen or refrigerator door.

The use of these artificial intelligence (AI) products are not limited to what goes on inside the house, however. Neighbors can share footage of what is going on outside their homes by using Vivint’s Streety app, which boasts a series of outdoor cameras posted along a street. Footage can be shared only with those who live within a 300-yard radius of you, providing users with live feeds.

And how about watching TV without a basket of clothes in front of you in need of folding? The Seven Dreamers’ Laundroid is an automated laundry-folding robot and wardrobe management system that uses artificial intelligence to sort clothes. You can toss the clothes into the device’s bottom drawer and wait as it neatly folds them, sorting them by family member. The device also allows you to create an online closet.

Refrigerators have been receiving more and more tech over the past decade or so, with LG’s newest InstaView ThinQ smart refrigerator featuring a 29-inch touchscreen on the door that becomes transparent by touch. Using Amazon Alexa for voice control, you can manage your food supply, receiving automatic reminders when items are running low.

How about a device that turns on lights, brews your coffee, or reads out your daily schedule to you? The Lenovo Smart Display uses Google Assistant for voice control using a touchscreen tablet. You can ask it to make video calls or just tell it to display your favorite morning news channel. To address privacy, Lenovo has added a mute to the speaker and a flip to cover the camera when needed.

C-3PO may not be a thing of sci-fi-movies after all. Social companion robots may soon be following you around and doing your bidding, as evidenced by Blue Frog Robotics’ Buddy, a fully mobile robot who can hear and speak, as well as react to its environment with a range of expressions. The tablet-faced Google Assistant voice-controlled robot can interact with smart-home devices, monitor a home’s security, be an information source, or even tutor your kids.

Of course, all this state-of-the-art technology requires a learning curve on your part. But at least if you end up yelling at the devices because they didn’t quite understand you the first time, no one’s feelings will be hurt. Just saying….

Source: Realtor Mag, TBWS

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