Kitchen Technology Ideas
It’s easy to focus on the living room as the main centre of attention for your home technology but there are many other rooms in your house which can be greatly improved with a touch of tech. In this, the first part of a series of articles I will look at the kitchen.
Lighting
Kitchens are probably the most heavily used area of a family home. They are used throughout the day and night and often used for tasks as diverse as making breakfast to doing homework to huddling and chatting at a party. Obviously these three tasks do not have the same requirements for lighting but in a standard kitchen this is exactly what you get. ON or OFF. A well designed and programmed lighting system can give you dozens of different “scenes” which allow you to quickly and simply switch your kitchen from “homework mode” (perhaps a setting which has the area of the table or breakfast bar at 100% brightness) to a relaxing mood setting for enjoying a glass of wine after the kids are in bed. Lighting scenes like this can really make a difference to a kitchens ambiance and can help make the most multi-purpose of rooms even more useful. Consider a lighting scene for some of the other uses that we list below…
Entry
Sometimes it can be a quite an inconvenience to get from the kitchen to the front door, especially when you have hands soaked in dish-water or a pan which is about to boil over! An entry system can allow you to see who is at the door, speak to them and then release the lock on the door if you wish to let them in. Our integrated systems can even be programmed to pause Sky+ or mute the music you are listening to when the doorbell rings so that you don’t miss a visitor or delivery man because you were too busy dancing around the island to the latest Gaga track to notice!
Intercom
Sick of walking to the foot of the stairs to scream “dinners ready!!” ? Why not install an intercom system or DECT phone system which will allow you to speak to people in other rooms without losing your voice.
Music
Multi Room audio is one of our most requested technologies, kitchens make a great place to control which album or playlist you want to listen to and perhaps set the volume level for the kitchen and adjoining dining area. There’s nothing like waking up in the morning to your favorite mp3 playlist and being able to switch on and pick up where you left it when you get downstairs for breakfast.
TV/Video
Having a TV in the kitchen is a very popular option, whether it is for following Delia or Jamie’s recipes, watching the news or keeping the kids entertained while you cook dinner. We install TV’s in most kitchens now and unsurprisingly they are the most heavily used screens in the house.
Web
On a number of occasions we have been asked for web access on the TV in the kitchen. This is a feature that we think more and more people will want in the future. Example uses have been for simple web browsing, looking up recipes, family photo slide shows, iTunes control, and management of a digital family schedule.
Automation
Kitchens generally make a lot of heat and therefor don’t always need the same level of heat from the central heating system be it underfloor heating or traditional radiators, and intelligent, integrated system can monitor the temperature of the room and turn off the central heating if it is not needed.
Careful and thoughtful design can also add other energy saving benefits. Some of our systems can monitor the amount of power being used by seperate appliances allowing you to see which items use the most juice and switch them off when you don’t need them, we can also program our systems to constantly watch for movement and if nobody is around we can turn off the lights, the TV, the music even the oven or hob (if you wish) Our sensors can also measure the natural light coming in during daylight hours and reduce the brightness of the lighting to save energy.
Where automation is concerned really the possibilities are endless. If you can dream it up, we can make it happen. Want to be able to pre-heat the oven as you leave the supermarket car park? Why not ask us to design you an SMS system or iPhone app which allows you to turn the oven on from your phone as you slam the boot of the car?
