FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM FEBRUARY 15, 2018 • AT HOME • THE QUEENS COURIER 55
at home
Smart home update 2018: New products
that organize your life through voice
Th e artifi cial intelligence that’s already
taking the world by storm is ramping up
even more in 2018, enabling a number of
innovative new smart home tools that can
make your life easier, more comfortable
or just more fun.
Th roughout the year, consumers worldwide
are expected to spend $102 billion
on hardware, services and installation
related to smart home systems, an
amount expected to ramp up to $157 billion
by 2022. Th e number of connected
things installed in smart cities by next
year? Nearly 1.1 billion, predicts Statista.
Increasingly, people will enjoy the convenience
of being able to monitor and
control their surroundings with a simple
touch or a few words of direction. In fact,
a 2017 study found 24 percent of consumers
already own a voice-controlled device
and another 20 percent plan to purchase
one in the next year.
“Pretty much anything can be made
smart these days,” notes Bernard Marr in
Forbes. “For our homes, there are obvious
smart products like TVs and less
obvious ones, like yoga mats that track
your Downward Dog. We can carry out a
whole range of tasks on the move simply
by touching a screen.”
Some of the hottest smart home products
that have recently debuted:
• LG’s entire line of OLED TVs is now
AI enabled. Th ey also let you speak
right into the remote control so with
one word, you can check weather
reports, search for content from overthe
air or streaming sources (including
Netfl ix, Amazon, Hulu or YouTube),
order items through Google or even
control other IoT devices within your
network. Even better, LG Electronics
has invented a next-generation OLED
TV that combines the most powerful
A9 Intelligent Processor created with
Atmos audio technology. Th e result?
Th e LG SIGNATURE OLED TV W8
off ers stunningly clear and detailed pictures,
cinema-quality sound and ultrafast
response times.
• Seeking the smartest refrigerator on the
market? Th e Wi-Fi-enabled LG Th inQ
InstaView is the fi rst to off er built-in
Amazon Alexa that responds to your
spoken directions by creating to-do lists
and grocery lists, ordering the groceries
themselves, controlling your refrigerator
settings, playing the music of
your choice and otherwise stepping up
to make your life easier. A convenient
touchscreen panel lets you instantaneously
peruse the weather, recipes,
shopping sites or the contents of your
fridge - without losing energy by opening
the door.
• Hands-free speakers with voice-activated
assistants such as Google Home
and Amazon Echo are helping tens of
millions of people worldwide effi ciently
manage their lives by interacting on
command with everything from home
appliances to entertainment systems to
information sources to online shopping
venues.
• What’s for dinner? Recipe apps like
SideChef and Innit already deliver fast
and intelligent answers to that age-old
question, giving everything needed to
plan and prepare the next meal. Voicecontrolled
AI takes this to the next level.
Innit is now connected to some models
of smart ovens, and for SideChef that
feature is coming online in 2018. What
does that mean for home chefs? When
they speak to
the oven to start
heating, it will
already know
those roasted
veggies need
25 minutes in
a 425-degree
oven.
• In its latest
version,
the Bluetooth
music headset
that may
already be a
staple of your
life allows you
to access the
Google Assistant by voice so you can
instantly access a range of functions
beyond just music. Th e LG TONE
PLATINUM SE lets you request and
receive notifi cations and answers to
questions, send text or audio messages
and more while you’re on the go.
Th anks to the continual evolution of
technology, we can start the new year
with fun new products aimed at making
our lives more effi cient, organized and
enjoyable. And that pattern should only
continue into the future.
“Already, many of us wake up in our
‘smart beds’ to a Bluetooth-connected
alarm clock that communicates with our
WiFi-enabled speakers,” notes marketing
consultant A.J. Agrawal in Entrepreneur.
“Soon, all our devices - microwaves,
washing machines and even bird feeders
- will be connected to the web. With
geospatial data from all of our devices,
tech-savvy companies will be able to optimize
and automate systems, eradicating
ineffi ciencies caused by human error.”
Courtesy BPT
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