Home Appliances Get Practical,
Lose Some High-Tech Elements

More than two decades after the housing industry started pushing "smart" houses, manufacturers are starting to dumb them down a little.

Examples of this about-face will be featured at the Kitchen/Bath Industry Show (K/BIS), a trade show for purveyors of kitchen, bath and laundry room products, from May 7 to 10 in Las Vegas.

The change comes after years of media banter about houses that can be totally controlled from afar (but only if you have the income and the technical know-how of a Silicon Valley computer whiz) as well as pie-in-the-sky prototypes, like talking ovens and refrigerators that keep track of grocery lists, which generate buzz but never wind up in stores.

But real people don't want an appliance that takes too long to figure out, or has fancy features that are rarely used. "People want fewer options and more control," says Suzie Williford, vice president of the National Kitchen and Bath Association.

In fact, a new survey of 602 homeowners by the Internet Home Alliance, a consortium of manufacturers and housing trade groups, found that folks want practical functions -- like a digital calendar that keeps track of appointments, a wireless recipe projection system, or a charging station for their family's cell phones and PDAs.

Consequently, many of the products that will debut at the show don't exactly operate on a genius level. Rather, they have just a few extra IQ points in areas that the manufacturers' research has shown that consumers care about, like speed and automatic shutoff features. Here's a sampling:

Pot Watchers: Thermador's new 30- and 36-inch silver-mirrored induction cooktops have an anti-overflow system, which sounds an alarm and shuts off the power if a liquid boils over. The cooktops also turns off cooking elements if they are inadvertently left on for long periods, and it switches off the elements if they get hotter than 300 degrees Celsius, which could start a fire. The downside: Induction cooking requires special pots; the manufacturer includes a starter set. The cooktops will appear stores in November, with a suggested retail price of $2,499 to $2,999.

TV dinners: Fifty-one percent of homeowners who intend to remodel their kitchens this year plan to include a television set, according to new research by the National Kitchen and Bath Association. So LG Electronics is introducing a double-door refrigerator that doesn't keep track of your groceries but does provide some entertainment and organizational functions. On the right-hand door is a 15-inch-high cable-ready HGTV and FM radio; on the left-hand is a screen that shows weather forecasts from wireless feeds, digital photos downloaded through a USB port, and pre-loaded recipes. The unit costs $3,500, about three times as much as non-entertaining fridges. It will hit stores this summer.

TiVo dinners: Fridges aren't the only appliances doubling as entertainment centers. The new avantGarde [CQ] Multimedia Hood by Siemens incorporates a flatscreen TV, DVD player and TiVo capabilities in its 36-inch chimney-style range hood. The company says it made the chimney extra-quiet so it won't drown out the audio; cooks will have to figure out themselves how to keep the remote out of the spaghetti sauce. The unit will cost $3,199 and will be in stores in July.

Green machines: Trying to build a reputation as eco-friendly, Bosch has made its entire product line Energy-Star qualified, meaning that it meets federal energy-saving standards. At K/BIS, the company has added an "EcoOption" to its top-of-the-line 500 and 800 series Nexxt Laundry washers and dryers, which will go on sale in June. Pushing the green-colored button on the appliance adjusts heating cycles to your clothing's moisture levels to save energy (though one wonders why the machines just couldn't be programmed to do this automatically). The machines also have automatic "jeans" and "comforter" cycles. Washers range from $799 to $1,299; dryers go from $699 to $1,099.

Heat-Sensing Hoods: Two new Best by Broan range hoods, the indoor WP29 and the outdoor WPD29, incorporate technology that senses when too much heat is building up and adjusts blower speeds accordingly, to help prevent fires. The outdoor hood is made of marine-grade stainless steel to resist the effects of moisture and heat; the indoor hood is made of specially coated silver-ion stainless steel to make cleaning easier. Already in some stores, the indoor hood costs $2,027 and the outdoor one is $3,299.

Countertop Smarts: Sears is launching a new line of stainless-steel countertop appliances in its Kenmore Elite line that are built for speed. Among them are two-slice ($50) and four-slice ($75) toasters that brown bread in less than 55 seconds, and a $100 toaster oven that cooks a frozen chicken breast in 12 minutes. All use infra-red heat. The line also includes a $75 blender that automatically shuts itself off after five minutes, and a 14-cup "Fast Brew" coffeemaker that makes a pot of coffee in less than six minutes (it also has a "freshness indicator" that lets you know how long the pot has been on). Cost: $75, or $100 with a thermal carafe. The gadgets will be in Sears stores in the fall.

Shower Spas: Many shower spas have lots of different settings and options controlled by a confusing set of knobs. But PULSE Showerspas is introducing two new spa units controlled by only two knobs. The $895 Makena and the $865 Luana spa don't have chromatherapy lights or built-in music systems like some of their higher-end competitors. But they are smarter than the typical shower, with multiple body jets that mist, spray or pulsate water, as well as handheld and "rain" showerheads. The spas are pre-plumbed, so skilled do-it-yourselfers can install them. Both spas will be in stores by the end of next month.

-- June Fletcher is a staff reporter at The Wall Street Journal and the author of "House Poor" (Harper Collins, 2005). Her "House Talk" column appears most Mondays on RealEstateJournal.com. Email your questions about the residential real-estate market. Please include your name, city and state. If you don't want your name used in our column, please indicate that. Due to volume of mail received, we regret that we cannot answer every question.

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