The oven and the fridge are connected to each other, the oven knows what’s in the fridge and knows how to cook it, at what temperature, with what timing: it looks like a fairy tale and we’ve been hearing about it for years. And yet it’s not a fairy tale, especially now: technology is already largely capable of doing all these things, and if it doesn’t do them, it’s our fault. We are the obstaclefor this story to have a happy ending.
“The limit is the person”, he told us clearly Gianpiero Morbello, head of Haier Europewhom we met in Berlin on the occasion of IFA 2023, precisely asking him how the company (which also controls the brands Candy e Hoover) intends to exceed this limit.
Tech Test Google Nest Wifi Pro, the proof: the easy way to the mesh network by Emanuele Capone 28 November 2022
The secret is in the image recognition
“People obviously have no desire or time to manually enter products into an app as they put them in the fridge”, Morbello reminded us, emphasizing however that “without this so-called inventory management, real integration between the various appliances cannot be done”. You can’t have a fridge that warns us of the expiry date of something or the ripening of fruit or an oven that knows by itself when the roast is ready. And then what? “The technology is already there, between barcode reading or manual entry, perhaps with the icons in the app, but we have to make it even easier for the user”. And there is only one way to make it easier. Indeed, there are two: “Put more cameras and sensors (in the fridge, in the oven, at home, ed) and use artificial intelligence and image recognition”. So that I come home after shopping, I put things in the fridge and the fridge knows what they are by itself, because it recognizes them by itself.
Another road that Haier is trying to take is that of agreements with large retailerswith whom the products are sold: the idea is that supermarkets know what the individual customer is buying and therefore when the customer returns home, this information can also be transmitted to the fridge, to the oven, to the wine cellar and so on. Morbello confirmed to us that “on this, on making this process as fluid as possible, we carry out constant research: as we arrive at an applicable solution, we apply it to some of our products”.
Gianpiero Morbello, head of Haier Europe
One app to do it all
There is no doubt among the solutions that go in this direction l’app hOnwhich was released in 2020 and which we have last March had the opportunity to try for a long time: “It is available for all 3 of our brands and 90% of our washing machines can already be connected, as are many ovens and refrigerators – Morbello explained again – We have set ourselves an objective on this, we want by 2026 we want all our products to be connected to the Net through this app”.
App that according to Haier would above all have the advantage of allowing you to do more with the same device, both to those who buy it and to those who sell it: take a picture of what needs to be washed in the washing machine and have them suggest the most correct programme, to use washing programs or cooking that maybe you didn’t even know you had, contact the call centre and have remote assistance, receive OTA updates as if the fridge were a smartphone, buying and selling supplementary services (new functions, new washing programmes), profile the customer to better understand their habits and also develop future products based on what people really do with the devices (the Candy Rapidò dishwasher was born this way, seeing how much people preferred quick washes to other programs).
That’s not all, because the app also has the ability to help the user reduce consumption and pollution e you become the nerve centre about that smart home we’ve (again) been hearing about for years. If we haven’t really seen it yet, if not partially, the fault here is not the people but the technology. Of the fact that the technologies used by the various companies don’t talk to each other, because it is objectively impossible to think that a person has an app to control the lights, one for the TV, one for the security cameras and yet another for the fridge, the oven and the washing machine. In this case, the solution it’s called Matter, the standard for the smart home conceived (incredibly together) by Google, Apple and Amazon: “We absolutely support it, we want our products to be compatible with this platform and we are working to make them all compatible”, Morbello told us. Again: “Our idea is not only to have everything connected but also to have an open platformso that the hOn app can be used for everything, even to control products that we may not sell (such as thermostats and locks, ed.) and even competitor products”.
The Haier FD 100 fridge when closed: it is 1.90 meters high and 1 meter wide From left, the Haier Laundry Center washer-dryer and the Haier FD 100 fridge The Hoover HDX electric broom IFA 2023 How listening to music will change with intelligence artificial, according to JBL by our correspondent Bruno Ruffilli 30 August 2023
The products: the fridge with AI and the foldable broom
Speaking of products, among the many that Haier, Hoover and Candy unveiled in Berlin, there are 3 in particular that Morbello appreciated the most. First of all, the Casarte collectionwhich aims to move the Haier brand beyond the premium segment of the market: designed by the Med style center in Milan, it is made up of FD 100, a one meter wide fridge who uses AI to improve the preservation of food and has a large drawer capable of minimizing the presence of oxygen and therefore slowing down the aging of any food, and from Laundry Center, a washer-dryer with two portholes enhanced with artificial intelligence. Both “bring together the best of the technology we currently have available” and have prices that reflect this: on sale from 2024, the fridge will cost around 5,000 euros and the washer-dryer around 3,000 euros.
Then, the cordless electric broom Hoover HFX (which in Berlin could be tested on the road, i.e. in a sort of labyrinth recreated in the company’s stand), which has a final joint designed to “reach every corner of the house better and more easily” and also folds back on itself to be more compact and easy to store; on sale from the end of 2023, it will cost between 549 and 699 euros depending on the versions.
Three things that pleased Haier’s top management and us too who saw them live, but not the only ones on the horizon: in the future of the Chinese multinational there are also new products of the Washpass family (our test)characterized by the innovative subscription purchase formula (the next one will probably be a dishwasher) and above all the relaunch of the historic Italian brand Candydetected in 2019. But for that we should wait until the beginning of next year.
@capoema