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Artificial intelligence (AI) – The third important component of the smart home is enabling appliances to assist in operational decisions. This term refers to the ability of an object to gather data and then make choices or adaptations based on this in- formation, or the capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behavior. Appliances will be using artificial intelligence to make choices for the cook and/or to lead the cook in the decision-making process of kitchen management and food preparation. There are many predictions about the future usefulness of AI in the kitchen: • One manufacturer, GE, imagined a kitchen in 2025 would utilize AI to create wellness centers – an appliance that identifies the user's biometrics and then safely delivers medicines, or reports to the family caregiver or doctor. • That same research project suggested that the artificial intelligence of a 3D printer could create food for pets and, perhaps, toys for these four-legged family members. In the nearer future, the Silestone Institute – in a report titled "The Home Kitchen in the Era of Globalization" – identified Trend #1 to be the value of connectivity and smart appliances. The other top trends were: • Sustainability: The interest in eco-efficien- cy and locally sourced products. • The value of a space for personal health and well-being. • Techniques/equipment from restaurants be- ing specified for the domestic kitchen. • The inclusion of multipurpose emotional spac- es for family interaction and leisure. There's quite a future ahead for our profession. As our industry starts a new year, let me focus on useful technologies available today that make kitchen activities easier to manage and entertaining more fun for your clients. SMART APPLIANCES AVAILABLE TODAY First, let me stress that IoT sensing ability is built into appli- ances in very useful ways right now! Here's one example: A ventilation hood can sense the air temperature and the humidity so it can then turn itself on and off as needed in the cooking area. Such a feature is a great benefit if there is more than one person who cooks in the kitchen, and they are of different heights. It's useful if the cooking center is in an open-plan kitchen and family members – even the primary cook – just don't get around to turning the hood on when they should! Here is another example: A dishwasher can sense the level of soil during a washing and then customize the wash cycle, resulting in an energy-efficient way to get a clean load of dish- es every time. One of the best uses of the connected appliance's pre-pro- grammed algorithms (ability to solve a class of problems) is being incorporated into ovens. An oven today can be pro- grammed with what might be called a culinary center – where the users select an item they wish to cook from a drop-down menu, and then are guided with prompts and photographs from the preset menu of dishes to select the desired doneness of the item (by internal temperature) and the type of cooking container they have on hand for the process. The oven then guides the cooking process based on these variables. This type of problem-solving programming makes kitchen work easier for the busy homemaker, and really helps someone just learn- ing to cook get everything just right. Combining new heat transference technologies expands and extends the capabilities of an intelligent oven. There are This chart (from the manufacturing world) helps us understand the levels of intelligence our systems will be capable of in the future. We are just at the beginning of the pyramid. FUNCTION ATTRIBUTES • Self-configure for resilience • Self-adjust for variation • Self-optimize for disturbance • Integrated simulation and synthesis • Remote visualization for humans • Collaborative diagnostics and decision making • Twin model for components and machines • Time machine for variation identification and memory • Clustering for similarity in data mining • Plug and play • Multi-dimensional data correlation • Sensor network Smart analytics for: • Component machine health • Multi-dimensional data correlation • Degradation and performance prediction 5 CONFIGURATION LEVEL 4 COGNITION LEVEL 3 CYBER LEVEL 2 DATA-TO-INFORMATION CONNECTION LEVEL 1 SMART CONNECTION LEVEL January 2018 • KitchenBathDesign.com 75 DESIGNER'S NOTEBOOK