Your Home Appliances

Your Home Appliances
Most of the attempts to converge the Internet and home appliances have
been prototypes and concept products — a few products are actually on the
market, but we’d be less than honest if we said that the quantities being sold
were anything but mass market yet.
LGE (www.lge.com) was the first in the world to introduce the Internet
refrigerator — a Home Network product with Internet access capability —
in June 2000 (see Figure 19-1). It soon introduced other Internet-based information
appliance products in the washing machine, air conditioner, and
microwave areas. The Internet refrigerator has a 15-inch detachable touchscreen
that serves as a TV monitor, computer screen, stereo, and digital
camera all in one. You can call your refrigerator from your cell phone, PDA,
or any Internet-enabled device.
LGE also has an Internet air conditioner that allows you to download programs
into the device so that you can have pre-programmed cooling times,
just like with your heating system setbacks. Talk to your Digital Home Theater
to preprogram something stored on your audio server to be playing when
you get home. It’s all interrelated, sharing a network in common. Wireless
plays a part by enabling these devices to talk to one another in the home.
Samsung’s (www.samsungelectronics.com) Digital Network Refrigerator is
equipped with Internet access, a videophone, and a TV. In addition to storing
food, consumers can send and receive e-mail, surf the Net, and watch a
favorite DVD by using the refrigerator’s touchscreen control panel, which
also serves as a detachable wireless enabled handheld computer. Pretty neat.
All of this is still pricey; you’ll spend $6,000 or more on an Internet refrigerator.
But the future is one where most appliances have a network interface (and
predominantly a wireless one) on board, and pricing will come down fast.

Figure 19-1:
LGE’s
Internet
Refrigerator
is wirelessly
enabled.
And with the developments in radio frequency identification (RFID) and other
technologies, you might indeed get to the point where your kitchen monitors
all of its appliances (and what’s in them — “We need more milk.”).