The expectations concerning household appliances’ performances go on evolving. Consequently, also the components that power them, give them life and functions must adapt themselves. Designers use new materials and develop modular components to improve ergonomics and to decrease consumptions.
With the change of technology and of users’ expectations, household appliance manufacturers are called to face various new challenges. To offer consumers a broad range of choices regarding their way of washing clothes, cooking and washing up, the OEM of household appliances are equipping machines with sensors and cutting-edge electronics to make them smarter.
Rethinking designs is not enough, it becomes also necessary to conform to new (or updated) safety regulations. Moreover, we should study modalities to enhance the operational efficiency in production processes, which must keep pace with environmental requisites to satisfy customers’ demands and social changes in course.
To satisfy these requests, manufacturers must comply with evolving regulations and master the use of advanced technologies and materials, a best practice that aids avoiding the commercial marginalization carried out by competitors.
Those who are dedicated to success are designing a new generation of connected products, which will gain more and more market shares and will offer new opportunities for the after sales service.
The ascent of electronics and of sensors
The demand for Internet-connected household appliances is strongly rising. Today’s consumers, accustomed to managing every situation by means of software applications, from working and domestic activities to the personal fitness, now expect similar experiences from their household appliances.
In their turn, manufacturers are answering with a broad product range to satisfy consumers’ requirements, including refrigerators with various devices and sensors to maintain differentiated temperatures in the various zones, ovens with Wi-Fi-connected cameras to visualize food in the different cooking phases, washing machines with local intelligence based on AI for the autonomous management of washing cycles and hobs with detection and management of the problems deriving from “too dry” in pots.
While some new functions add practicality, others satisfy the wish of obtaining efficiency and energy savings.
Together with IoT in the ambit of domestic safety, of lighting, of the control of boilers and of HVAC systems, various appliances equipped with sensors become part of an intelligent domestic environment, where everything can be connected to operate with optimal efficiency.
Adoption of new designs and materials
The proliferation of electronics and of controls has various implications for producers, including more attention to the man -machine interface. For customers grown with smartphone and tablet, this means using remote controls, instead of displays and pushbuttons.
Touch capacitive interfaces are also widely used, as they provide manufacturers and users with several advantages; first of all, there are fewer mechanical parts to be managed (and to be maintained), moreover touchscreens can be programmed for a broad range of functions and designed to withstand sometimes harsh use conditions of household appliances.
Using the right materials, OEM can also create distinguishing shape factors with a design appreciated by consumers, saving in manufacturing costs.
One of the most promising new materials is PEDOT. An organic mouldable polymer can be laid on a cheap polyester film, providing a more efficient use of materials than the current ITO (indium-tin oxide). It is as transparent, but less fragile and much more flexible; it allows OEM to create a backlighting of the keyboard on curved surfaces.
PEDOT:PSS is a transparent conductive polymer. It is a mixture between an ionomer (a polymer in which a significant part, but not exceeding 15%, of the macromolecule is composed by ionizable or ionic monomers) carrier of positive charges, and sulphonated polystyrene carrying negative charges. Due to its unique combination of conductivity, transparency, ductility and easy processing, PEDOT:PSS has become a reference material in the manufacturing of thin-film electronics.
The properties of PEDOT:PSS change with the dispersion, hence its versatility. One of its fundamental properties is conductivity; since PEDOT is conductive and PSS is insulating, the conductivity of the resulting polymer depends on the ratio between the two ionomers and on the film microstructure.
PEDOT:PSS is generally available as water-based emulsion. It is created through the polymerization of PEDOT monomers in a sulfonic polystyrene acid solution.
Moreover, the electrochromic materials based on PEDOT:PSS show also the capability of a fast and reversible colour change in real time, due to the redox process under the influence of the electric field. Colour changes can directly show readable visual information, highlighting promising applications in displays in manifold fields.
Adding functions to narrow spaces means also revising the electronics configuration, finding ways to miniaturize printed circuit boards and connectors, even maintaining a suitable power supply and preserving the signal integrity for numerous new controls. Moreover, they must have the capability of managing huge volumes of data flows inside the household appliance, as well as the data flow from/to other interconnected household devices.
They are remarkable challenges that need competences in the electronic design and in the choice of connectors. Facing them in the first phases will aid OEM to be ahead of the game in the evolutionary front of the smart home.
Hand in hand with the increase of the number of connected appliances, the need of interoperability of the software developed by various manufacturers will rise. To date, over two hundred OEM have joined the Connectivity Standards Alliance (former Zigbee Alliance), a consortium committed to the development of universal open communication standards, which allow products to be connected and to interact one another safely and reliably. Another consortium is the Home Connectivity Alliance; recently established, its mission is supplying consumers with more interoperability options inside an ecosystem of connected home.
All this should enlarge the scenario, determining the smooth adoption of new functions, with high performance levels and a fast time-to-market.
A new world of connected products
Various recent studies highlight that many managers in the manufacturing sector believe that digital services will constitute a significant driver of future revenues.
Creating connected and safe, reliable and efficient appliances is an extremely complex enterprise, but for those who reach the success, rewards may be substantial. Designing user-friendly machines with an aesthetically attractive design (as sought by consumers) has the potential to increase sales and to heighten the market share.
Besides, this might be just the beginning since connected products could change the supply model of services, adding new potential income sources through the IoT monitoring, the preventive maintenance and remote solutions like Wi-Fi updates, as well as data that can be monetized to support manifold initiatives.
The OEMs that adopt a proactive approach to design and get ready to transpose the quickly-evolving sector standards have the best possibilities of reaching the success in the environment of the connected appliances of the future.
Answering positively to sustainability initiatives
The household appliance industry has been committed for a long time to sustainability and in particular to energy efficiency; to date, it has achieved some remarkable successes, documented by the associations of household appliance manufacturers in the following fields:
• Modern refrigerators, despite all their new electronic functions, consume less energy than the old incandescence lamp under 100 watts.
• The new washing machines contain at least 20% more of laundry compared to some decades ago, but they are more efficient from the energy point of view, by a percentage surpassing 70%.
• Modern dishwashers use about 40% less of water versus the beginning of this century.
Despite these progresses, Governments and consumers go on urging towards an even higher efficiency and imposing more and more severe environmental controls.
A simple example is given by the replacement, in all household appliances, of old lamps with LEDs, a certainly energy-efficient alternative.
