Appliances

When a fridge is opened, warm air gets into the main storage area and energy must be used to cool it again. LG tackled this problem with its Door-in-Door French-door refrigerator, which allowed regular-use items to be stored in a door-frame compartment. Now, the company has updated the design.

Haier and Energous are joining forces to turn household appliances, such as fridges and washing machines, into chargers for mobile devices. Not only that, they will be using the WattUp technology developed by Energous that allows devices to be charged at a distance.

What if your dryer could send a notification that would buzz your phone or smartwatch to let you know your laundry is done? Well, it may be easier to tap into the brains of your appliances than you might think, with GE's US$20 open-source Green Bean module.

Evermind helps you keep tabs on the well-being of elderly or disabled relatives or friends by alerting you remotely when electrical appliances are switched on and off in their home, thereby indicating that they are active and everything is normal.

Nest Labs has announced the launch of a developer program designed to drastically expand the diversity of its home automation devices and the number of products they interact with. Names like Mercedes-Benz, Jawbone and Google Now are already on board.

LG has announced that three premium appliances featuring its HomeChat service are being readied for launch in South Korea. With HomeChat, the contents of the new smart fridge can be viewed remotely, washing machine cycles be started from afar and an oven set to pre-heat.

The Anova Precision Cooker aims to bring sous-vide into the more affordable end of the spectrum with a self-contained unit that turns an ordinary cook pot into a sous-vide appliance.

Italian product designer Simone Rebaudengo has created a connected toaster that becomes unhappy when it goes unused, drawing attention to opportunities for e-waste to be reduced.

LG HomeChat will allow users to issue commands and receive status updates from their smart appliances by texting them with simple, conversational language. According to the company, you will literally be able to ask your washer "What're you doing?" and it will respond just as a person would.

The success of Nest's smart household devices has caught the eye of Google CEO Larry Page. In a clear statement that it believes the future of the home is a connected one, the company today announced its acquisition of Nest for US$3.2 billion.

Signalling that Apple's Made for iPhone/iPod/iPad (MFi) certification may be set to play a bigger role in ushering in the "Internet of Things," Chinese manufacturer Haier has unveiled the first white good to be certified by the MFi program, a smart air conditioner.

Like other home automation systems, Ninja Sphere can monitor and allow the remote control of connected devices, but offers expanded capabilities with its gesture control interface and the ability to map the location of devices in the home in real time.