Whether you want to appeal to the lady of the house or the entire family, a high-tech kitchen is a great place to start.
Source: DIGITAL HOME OnlinePublication date: April 22, 2008 By Dan Daley
If there was ever a match made in heaven for builders using technology to sell homes, it’s the increasingly complex relationship between home systems integration and the kitchen. The kitchen has been the center of homes going back thousands of years. The arrival of the home theater and media room may have temporarily shifted that focus, but the kitchen is again taking its rightful place as not just a node on a system but as a full-blown technology center.
“The kitchen is becoming the key interface point for home automation, especially since in modern home design it’s increasingly common to see the kitchen connected to the house’s great room,” observes Ray Lepper, president of Home Media Richmond, an integrator in that Virginia city. “Making the kitchen the systems control center of the home sets up that combined space nicely for entertaining.”
Shawn Hansson, owner of Logic Integration in Englewood, Colo., says he will typically install a 12-inch flat panel display in the kitchen as an interface for the home’s automated systems. He’ll then program software widgets, such as real-time weather and stock updates, and he’ll link the panel to programs like Microsoft Outlook or other e-mail program via Ethernet to the home’s router. “Outlook on the touchscreen is replacing the note and refrigerator magnet,” he says. “It also keeps the family computer free for other tasks.” Hansson’s screens can also call up a security camera, or even multiple cameras if a video multiplexer is integrated into the system.
Jason Hanley, owner of Acme Integration in Spokane, Wash., uses ELAN’s Via! Valet touchpanel in kitchens and programs them in order to eliminate the need for what he calls “wall warts,” which are anything from light switches to whole-house audio volume controls.
“Centralization of functionality is the trend these days, and the kitchen is the most central space in the house,” says Hanley. “If you can incorporate a group of technologies into a single, simple control surface in the kitchen, the builder can accomplish several things, not least of which is reducing or removing the technology intimidation factor with the wife and making her interior decorator happy not to have to work around the warts.”
Smart Appliances
The fabled refrigerator that can sense when you’re low on milk has yet to become a reality. But builders and integrators are preparing the runways for something like it. Shawn Hansson says he has several builder clients who have requested cabled LAN connections for appliances in anticipation of the time when they can be accessed on a network. (And now several smart appliances are network-addressable.)
“We’re already seeing that capability from high-end appliance makers, allowing remote users to do things like preheat an oven or get a ping when the washing machine is done,” he says.
Jason Hanley sells LG refrigerators with built-in 15-inch LCD screens that come with component video inputs. Using an ELAN S12 multiroom AV controller and an M800 remote, he can send various video sources to the refrigerator screen.
“The kitchen is a hub where video cabling, phone lines, and the network meet up,” Hanley says. “And I’m using Cat-6 cabling on all the structured wiring now. It’s faster as the kitchen’s electronics environment gets denser, and it has some sales flair.”
If you want to look over the horizon at the next-generation connected kitchen, you’ll find it at the MIT Media Lab’s Counter Intelligence Group, created to explore “technological approaches to functional, cognitive, and social support in the home, with a particular focus on the kitchen.”
CounterACTIVE is a kitchen counter that’s actually an interface for a combination computer, overhead projector, and electric field sensing array. Users are guided through recipes by touching the icons and words on the countertop. Another research project uses a camera to replace the traditional oven window. Video and other data can be sent to any screen in the home.
Looking for the Pay-Off
Even though fully integrated, high-tech kitchens are thus far a custom builder phenomenon, not all high-end builders have jumped headlong into smart kitchens. Tom Mason, president of Tom Mason Custom Homes in Knoxville, Tenn., says he’s just now venturing into the field, using Simple Control, a locally based company that markets its own home automation systems. He’s integrated smart appliances into the kitchen package of his parade showcase home, including an IP-connected range and refrigerator. As a sales proposition, it’s working, he says.
“What I’ve found is that you have to let [prospective buyers] touch the technology, not just talk about it or put in the brochure,” he explains. “And it absolutely, positively has to work every time. You can’t push a button and not have something happen that’s supposed to happen. You lose them immediately.”
Mason says automating kitchens isn’t as clear-cut as, say, a home theater. “We’re still learning how to configure them. Not everyone wants everything,” he says. “As we learn how to make them more ergonomically correct, I think we’ll see high-tech kitchens help sales.”
Michael Cronin, a principal in Cronin Wood Investments, a custom builder in Nashville, says the kitchens in his $1 million-plus homes have been as connected as the home theater or media room for several years. “At this price point in this market, a touch screen in the kitchen that can control the home automation is no longer considered a luxury,” he says.
However, while high-tech kitchens are a selling point with buyers, Cronin adds that the average cost to outfit them–about $50,000 in a $1 million home–doesn’t generally provide a huge return on investment in itself.”The margin on technology is in the equipment, which the integrator or a distributor sells, not in the installation of it by the builder,” he says. “I’m not looking for the automation in then kitchen to add revenue; I’m looking for it to help make the overall sale.”
Dan Daley is a freelance writer and frequent contributor to DIGITAL HOME Online.
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