Get Smart - technical upgrade housing

Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine, Jan, 2000 by Elizabeth Razzi, Kimberly Lankford

The easy way

WHETHER IT'S A $90 programmable thermostat that turns the heat down while you sleep or a microwave oven that automatically calculates how long it will take to thaw a steak, practically all of us enter the 21st century with things in out homes that are already smart. And those gadgets are about to become downright clever. Some noteworthy products are featured on these pages.

A few of the new ideas are clearly too whacked-out to work--such as Philips Electronics' bathroom mirror that allows you to watch the morning TV news and read your e-mail while you brush your teeth. So far, so good. But it also incorporates a TV camera. The idea is that if you feel sick, you could show the doctor (or your boss) how bad you look. People who saw a prototype at Saks Fifth Avenue last fall hated the camera, says a Philips spokesman.

Lots of the new technology is making its way into our lives imperceptibly as manufacturers employ microchips and sensors to automate more of the decisions we used to make. For example, Whirlpool's high-end washers now check the temperature of the cold water coming out of your pipes and automatically add enough hot water to bring it to the most effective wash temperature.

Some of KitchenAid's convection ovens ask you for the time and temperature that your recipes call for with a regular oven and automatically convert them to the right time and temp for convection cooking. And networked computers are going to make their way into the kitchen, with e-chefs talking you through making a creme brulee.

Meanwhile, in the family room, computers are downloading music from the Internet and masquerading as stereos. TVs are surfing the Web and pretending they're computers. Video recorders have computer hard drives; computers have video players. And even game consoles let you check your e-mail. The analysts call it "convergence," but it seems more like sibling rivalry.

"What you have is a battle going on among PC/cable/consumer-electronics companies and video-game manufacturers for control of what's going to be the primary home-entertainment device," says Michael Goodman of the Yankee Group, a technology consulting firm. "They all want to be the first thing you turn on."

Interactive entertainment

PC MAKERS CAN probably relax. Much of the research, online trading and bill-paying we now do with a PC we're likely to continue to do with a PC. But manufacturers have already begun to integrate some features of the computer--and Internet capability--into home-entertainment systems.

Take Web TV. It was a flop as a substitute for the PC. But now big companies such as Microsoft expect Web-related TV to take off because programmers are homing in on related information: Click on an icon while watching a baseball game to get players' stats and the team's schedule, or click on an ad to order the product.

That interactivity will happen on a much larger, much crisper TV screen. The new digital TVs (about $5,500 plus $1,000 for a converter) have at least twice the resolution of analog televisions. TV stations could switch to all-digital as early as 2006.