If you’ve ever wondered where technology is headed, there’s no better place to get a peek into the future than the Consumer Electronics Show. Held annually on the Las Vegas strip, the CES attracts the world’s brightest technological pioneers at a weekend-long trade show. This year saw some 3,500 exhibitors and approximately 175,000 visitors converge under one roof, where the latest advancements in wearables, home automation, cars, and home appliances were on display.
With nearly every industry in attendance, the CES can be a dizzying and overwhelming weekend. It’s a challenge to take in all of the ideas sprouting from the most successful futurists’ minds. It takes time to go through every 3,500 exhibitor’s offerings, especially when you’re busy making expert repairs to appliances around the city — which is why we’re presenting our favourite trends now in March.
Our regular readers will remember our post from January, The Future of Your Kitchen. In it we discussed how our kitchens will become smart rooms equipped with the latest automated systems that can connect with other devices and the Internet. We studied IKEA’s kitchen prototype set for 2025, but the CES proves that many of the Swedish design company’s innovations are already here.
LG came out swinging with their smart fridge. While by no means the first smart fridge on the market, LG’s InstaView refrigerator has streamlined the typical design with a 29-inch touchscreen hooked up to a camera. When you knock on the front of the doors, the touchscreen displays the view of your inner fridge, revealing what you have without the need to open its doors. The appliance is also outfitted with Alexa, the voice behind the Amazon Echo, which lets you use the AI voice assistant to help you find recipes, take stock of your groceries, and play music while you cook.
Whirlpool was another company to install Alex into their latest “Door-Within-Door” fridges. As the name suggests, these appliances have two doors, one that opens up to the contents to the fridge and another that reveals a front panel that offers access to shelves without needing to open the full fridge. Whirlpool also showed off their upcoming Scan-to-Cook feature. Appliances with this function can scan the barcode of a package and automatically adjust its settings to the suggested cooking instructions, taking us one step closer to a fully automated kitchen.
Moving from the kitchen to the laundry room, the CES also displayed an exciting vision of the future’s washers and dryers. We’ve come a long way from cleaning our clothes on a rock. Even Energy Star appliances are a thing of the past when compared to Samsung’s FlexWash and FlexDry laundry system. An appliance built within an appliance, the Flex systems have both a front- and top-loading cabinet that allow you to wash and dry two loads simultaneously.
When, exactly, we can expect to find these futuristic appliances in the average home is up for debate. We anticipate it will take decades for these trends to take hold here in Toronto, and our team of technicians will be ready for when that happens. Until then, we’ll continue to service the low-tech household appliances like we do every day. Give us a shout the next time you need a maintenance check-up or emergency repair. Available 24/7, we’re the city’s obvious choice for expert appliance repair. Call us to learn why!
