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It won’t be long before your refrigerator is talking to the Internet. Your washer and dryer and your oven will have access, too. Simply put, your appliances will be smart.
Over-pricing and under-performance issues have slowed the growth of smart appliances in the past. But manufacturers LG, General Electric, Whirlpool, Panasonic, Electrolux, Bosch and others are making great progress in the ability of smart appliances to save energy and communicate with owners and utilities.
Although it’s true that smart appliances may cost more than traditional appliances in the beginning, increased utility rates and government rebates are expected to incite consumers to replace their old appliances. Eventually, it will be a common sight to see people monitor their washer-dryers, ovens, refrigerators and robotic vacuum cleaners using their smartphones or tablet PCs; everything will be connected to the smart-grid.
Currently, it’s a major challenge to rely on the smart grid to deliver price information to use appliances at times during the day or night when rates are low. Few smart meter deployments are delivering energy prices yet, but that’s expected to change.
Today’s smart appliances are primarily using ZigBee to network home devices. Wi-Fi is also being used, ensuring that many of the best features of smart appliances will need a more comprehensive rollout of smart grid systems as well as new ways of pricing power to homeowners.
According to Pike Research, the smart appliance global market will grow slowly over the next few years, reaching only $2.2 billion in sales by 2013 and $6.3 billion by 2015. The regular global appliance market was a whopping $230 billion 2009. Whirlpool plans to produce 1 million smart clothes dryers by the end of 2011—one quarter of their Whirlpool’s expected dryer production. But, by 2019, smart appliances are expected to account for one in ten appliances sold and command a worldwide market of $26.1 billion, Pike predicts.
Whatever the market size, the capability is certain to be there. Users of smart appliances will be able to arrive home to a piping hot meal and a dryer full of freshly dried clothes. And the data centers that support the smart appliance market will have to be even smarter than the appliances they support.
AFCO is following this trend and its current data center rack enclosure systems are already “smart”. Imagine the rack, the focal point of data center technology, which senses inlet temperatures at varying points within the enclosure, and adjusts cool air flow according to server need. That’s what an AFCO rack provides, smart intelligence enabling worry free computing.
