GADGET REVIEWS Just another GADGET NEWS

LAS VEGAS LG on Wednesday shared its vision of appliances and smartphones coming together to create the ultimate connected home.

LG in a press conference showed examples of web-connected washing machines, refrigerators, ovens and a robot vacuum substantially improved with Android apps on tablets or smartphones.

“This is the first time the industry has actually had the infrastructure to support the technology for smart appliances,” said Patrick Steinkuhl, head of LG’s home appliances division.

Steinkuhl explained that Wi-Fi connections and apps would enable appliances to be much “smarter” than they are now. On an oven equipped with an Android tablet, you could download a recipe that instructs the oven to automatically change temperatures to provide optimal cooking results for a turkey, for example.

“Imagine an oven that is so smart that on the day of the big game it’s able to send you a text message saying ‘Hey, your roast is about done. Better get to the kitchen,” Steinkuhl said.

Another example he raised was a robot vacuum that could use an Android app to learn the precise dimensions of your home to know exactly which points have and haven’t been cleaned yet.

Apps could also improve energy efficiency in refrigerators, Steinkuhl added.

LG said it plans to sell some of these new appliances this year. The company hasn’t disclosed a price, but I can’t imagine they’ll be cheap, and I also won’t believe they’re capable of doing everything LG claims until I try some of them out myself. I’ll post some hands-on impressions this week after I get a demo on the show floor.

Image courtesy of LG

Brian is a Wired.com technology reporter focusing on Apple and Microsoft. He’s also writing a book about the always-connected mobile future called Always On (publishing April 2011 by Da Capo).
Follow @bxchen and @gadgetlab on Twitter.

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Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Image via Apple/iTunes

Today, Apple updated its iOS Remote application to version 2.0. The free Remote app is now optimized for the iPad’s larger display and supports streaming from shared libraries over wireless networks with computers running iTunes and the new Apple TV using AirPlay.

Earlier this week at CEDIA 2010, Sony showed off AV Receiver Remote, a similar (and similarly free) iOS universal remote application for its wide range of media appliances. While Apple’s Remote application allows you to control profiles for speaker volume, Sony’s allows you to do that, control room lighting, and stream internet, satellite, or broadcast radio. Christopher MacManus was able to record a hands-on for Sony Insider:

Just as Apple’s remote application leverages its strength in high-end computers and media players, Sony’s app leverages its strength in home theater appliances. Apple can send a movie to your television, but it didn’t make your television (or the receiver your TV might be connected to).

Last week at IFA 2010, Samsung used its new Galaxy Tab to demonstrate its Home Watcher app for Android, which leverages the Korean tech maker’s even more ubiquitous position in home appliances:

As Vivian Kim observes, writing for Apartment Therapy Unpluggd, Samsung’s “washers and dryers, refrigerators, microwaves, ranges, and home entertainment devices” can allow them to position their phones and tablets not as Apple imitators, but as genuine home automation solutions. You’ve never had a remote control for your refrigerator before — maybe you didn’t even know you wanted one. But once it’s within the realm not just of the possible — it always has been, for high-end early-adopters — but reasonably attainable for Samsung’s global middle-class consumer base, something has changed.

How much will we want to do with a single remote when that remote is not an infrared box wrapped around two AA batteries, but a powerful computer with an intuitive interface? In different ways, that’s the future towards which Apple, Sony, and Samsung are all pointing.

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Gadget Lab reader John Costello sent in his ingenious invention, one of those ideas so simple that you slap your forehead and wonder why it hasn’t been done before. John has designed an induction hob which uses LED “flames” to stop you turning it up too high.

While induction hobs give the instant control of a gas flame, there is no way to see how high you have set the heat (there are numbers on the knob, but that’s hardly intuitive). John noticed that people would set the controls too high, so he decided to fix it.

His hob uses LEDs arrayed around the perimeter of the heat-rings. these project a light onto the pot which varies in height depending on the amount of heat dialed-in. As the power creeps higher, so do the “flames”, giving visual feedback that can be read by anybody, even from afar.

I love it. I still use gas, as I like to melt the plastic handles off my stovetop espresso pots every few months, but if I went to electric, it would certainly be induction, and I’d like to have John’s electric blue flames licking up the sides of my saucepans.

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Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews