As consumers open their doors more widely and more often to voice assistants — worldwide shipments of smart speakers grew 95 percent in Q4 2018, according to Strategy Analytics — the smart home market serves as a premium growth opportunity for consumer tech retail.
While many dealers remain a bit befuddled on the best way to sell it, manufacturers are full-steam ahead on releasing devices that can connect with speakers, phones and (increasingly) each other.
What follows are some of the newest additions to the smart home, with options available for nearly every room.
See also: What Is A Smart Home?
In The Living Room
Featuring a 350-lumen display that can project video and images up to 200 inches, the 350 comes with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and HDMI connections, as well an Android operating system. Users can browse the web or download such apps as Netflix, HBO Go or Hulu through the app store. Pricing wasn’t available at press time.
Offered in 55-, 65- and 75-inch screen sizes, the 6-series Roku TVs feature up to 160 control zones, Dolby Vision HDR, wide color gamut, 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Ethernet. The built-in Roku OS 9 enables users to search for content using their voice. Pricing ranges from $649 to $1,799.
The company has teamed with Tuya Smart for a new line of smart-home devices, and this 6.5-foot multicolor LED light strip ($29.99) can be remotely controlled with the iOS and Android app. It also features voice control via Google Assistant.
Featuring a 7-inch screen, this voice-controlled smart display comes packed with Peerless Audio speakers, Amazon Alexa support, Bluetooth and a 5-megapixel front camera. Users can watch the news or weather, check a security feed, listen to audio books and more.
The 4K smart laser TV has an X-Fusion Laser Light Engine that combines three independent lasers to accurately display a wide array of colors and hues, reaching 96.6 percent of the Rec.2020 color space, according to the company. A TI DLP chip enables motion speeds with a 32ms refresh rate for 8.3 million pixels.
In The Kitchen
Perhaps the most traditional of Whirlpool’s nameplates, KitchenAid has caught up to the connected world with its first smart appliance. Its Wi-Fi-enabled oven, aptly named Smart Oven+, can be controlled via voice through a Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa device, and can be paired with a KitchenAid-branded Google Home Hub display that presents 45 meal-prep videos by celebrity chefs.
As LG brings its voice-controlled appliance roster to new global markets, it’s also added a new goodie to an assisted cooking app basket that includes Innit, SideChef and Drop. Its latest, Tovala, ships uncooked gourmet meals to subscribers along with a barcode that, when scanned with a smartphone, can relay detailed cooking instructions to select LG smart ovens and ranges.
The BSH brand is leveraging its parent company’s open Home Connect IoT platform, and its newly announced hook-up with voice-control contender Josh.ai, to provide another conduit for spoken commands. Starting with this built-in, fully automatic Coffee Machine, owners can now “order” their coffee at home, any way they like it, using natural language.
