Kitchen & Bath Business - July/August 2019 - 24

TRENDS

Cove, the newest brand
from SUB-ZERO and WOLF,
now oﬀers two dishwasher
options - with or without
a water softener. Both
models are panel-ready to
accept custom cabinetry or
stainless accessory panels
in 24-in. widths with tubular
or pro handles. Cove units
are connected-capable,
allowing users to receive
notiﬁcations when it's
time to replenish items like
dishwasher detergent and
rinse aid.

The Wi-Fi-enabled Combination Double Wall Oven
from LG combines the even
cooking produced by convection with the speed of a
microwave in one appliance.
Through LG's Smart ThinQ
app, users can remotely
preheat their ovens with
the tap of a button or use
voice commands on Google
Home and Amazon Alexa.
Smart recipe partners like Innit, SideChef and Drop allow
users to send recipes to their
ovens from their phones.

These experiences are created by spa-like products such as showers with preset, customizable
settings, touchless faucets or streaming audio. In
addition to enhancing the relaxing aesthetic of a
bath, these types of products aim to positively affect the homeowner's health. With the power of
elements like steam showers and chromotherapy,
users can experience lower blood pressure, better
sleep and improved circulation.
Safety and independence are also in mind when
it comes to the smart bathroom. Motion-activated
LED lighting can prevent trips at night, and thermostatic showerheads prevent scalding. Voice-activated showers and lighting can assist homeowners
with arthritis or difficulty seeing.With water-monitoring smart products, consumers can be notified
immediately in the case of a leak or overflow.
"Helping to protect the safety and security of
the family and the home is a key benefit to smart
bath products," said Matt Farwell, vice president,
brand management for GROHE. "Water damage brings with it a devastating personal loss that
smart technology helps mitigate."
This measure of control also makes it possible to
monitor water usage - data homeowners can use to
both lower their utility bills and be more ecofriendly.

ABOVE Happy D.2 Plus from

DURAVIT is a full suite of

bathroom products, including clean-lined bathtubs,
above-counter wash basins,
stand-alone consoles, semitall cabinets and high-tech
mirrors in a circular shape. The
mirrors are ﬁtted with a sensor
switch or with an icon control
on the surface to manage
mirror heating, ambient light
mode and a switch for warmor cool-colored light.

BELOW With more than 2600

products and growing, ZWAVE is a wireless communications technology system designed speciﬁcally for control,
monitoring and status-reading
applications in residential
environments. Shown here,
smart lighting products with ZWave inside can be accessed
and controlled from a single
smart home app to allow for
added convenience at home
and remotely.

A context-aware home would use devices and
sensors to learn about its homeowners and remember their daily routines - like what lights they
turn on when they first come home or what they
set the thermostat to at night.
Currently, these types of tasks are all achievable by setting up preset commands on connected devices, but intuitive AI would take it a
step further.This future smart home would likely
use AI to do tasks like automatically turn an
alarm clock on to wake a homeowner in time for
an event on their calendar. A refrigerator could
sense that a necessary item was running low and
automatically order it, or the blinds could routinely open at a certain time of day depending
on the season - all without the homeowner having to do anything. This technology could give
consumers time back that they would normally
spend on tedious tasks at home.
"All the convenience of the smart home will
be achieved without having to open a single app
or even use voice control," said Klein. "That is the
reality that the context-aware smart home will
someday bring - AI can help us move from a set
of connected devices to bringing true intel- â
ligence into the home."

WHERE AI COMES IN
The GROHE Sense & Sense
Guard water management
system oﬀers protection
against costly water damage
by notifying homeowners
about excess moisture or
leaks using a smartphone
app. Available together or
separately, GROHE Sense is
a smart water sensor that detects water leakage, while the
GROHE Sense Guard tracks
water pressure and the ﬂow
of water, automatically turning oﬀ the supply if it detects
a leak or burst pipe.

This ability to detect and notify homeowners of
water issues is possible because of artificial intelligence (AI) - a growing element in the smart
home. While for now AI is typically achieved
through an app or voice control, manufacturers
are working to make it more intuitive.
"Context-aware products are the next evolution
of the smart home," said Mitchell Klein, executive director of Z-Wave Alliance, a consortium
of smart home products powered by the Z-Wave
home control system. "They would allow users to
access a richer smart home experience, one that
truly understands and reacts to the way that they
use their home."

/ JULY-AUG. 2019 / KBBONLINE.COM / The official publication of NKBA (NKBA.org) and KBIS (KBIS.com)

http://www.KBBONLINE.COM http://www.NKBA.org http://www.KBIS.com

Kitchen & Bath Business - July/August 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Kitchen & Bath Business - July/August 2019