Intelligent Living

If the future were to be designed and decided by homemakers, life would be infinitely easier. They would invent things that would make spring cleaning as easy as sipping iced tea in summer. People would be coming home to a house that can secure itself against burglars and accidents. They will have home appliances that think and that won’t damage the environment – no CO2 emissions, and reduced consumption of water and electricity. They will have a refrigerator that will remind them of what they need to buy at the supermarket. They can download recipes from the ref for those annoying last-minute dinner parties with the spouse’s new boss.

If that were the future, then we have arrived – at least some parts of the world. Thanks to Swedish company Electrolux, all of the above are not just science fiction anymore, but a reality. And we’re not talking only about Bill Gates’ house either. Neither are we talking, as envisioned in the middle of the 20th century, about robots that could cook for us or raise our children or give a fabulous foot massage. That, fortunately for humans, is still confined to Hollywood movies. Give it a couple more millennia for Ray Bradbury’s fantasies to come true.

What we discovered on a recent trip to Stockholm seems to be the next stage of the home evolution. We saw just how smart a smart home can be.

In the Philippines, when we talk about intelligent structures, we think of new highrises that save electricity and of alarms going off to pinpoint the exact problems in the building.

In Sweden, intelligent structures are residential homes inhabited by families, not corporations, and not just IT people. And intelligent living is a definition created by the Electrolux Group to describe "a lifestyle in which the intelligent application of technology allows five principles to operate":

1. You don’t have to do things: Basic chores are automated.

2. You feel safe: Effective, non-oppressive security is easily available.

3. You don’t have to worry: Everyday domestic concerns and inconveniences are eliminated.

4. You can live well and eat well: Technology brings a world of ideas and information to the family table.

5. You can be connected: You can be in touch whenever you want to be – around the table, around the home or around the world.

Two products of Electrolux that contribute to intelligent living come to mind. One is already available in the Philippines, the Oxygen vacuum cleaner. It fulfills Principle No. 3. Oxygen vacuum cleaner won France’s prestigious Janus design award for its intelligent design and ergonomic features and was specially selected for the Swedish Design Engineering Prize. It emits clean air, so you don’t have to worry about kids being in the room when you clean.

The second, which fulfills Principle No. 1 and is not yet available locally, is the Tribolite vacuum cleaner. You don’t have to hold it, you don’t have to do anything. Just put it on the floor and it will start cleaning. It looks like a giant yoyo on the floor and uses ultrasound to navigate and then shuts itself when cleaning is over.

Now for the really smart home. Electrolux partnered with another Swedish company, Ericsson, to build e2-Homes for Sweden’s leading residential developer. Located in the Vallgossen district of Stockholm, the apartment that we visited – together with Alex Vergara of the Inquirer and other journalists from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong and India – is connected via network. Through a laptop computer, the network allows tenants to control the fire alarm, monitor the energy and water consumption of the household, book the laundry room, read the news, and know when security is compromised. They can access all this information inside the house or at the office.

In one of the 126 wonderfully designed apartments – with Design House Stockholm or Ikea furnishings no doubt – Electrolux people demonstrated how the network works. It’s as easy as pointing and clicking your mouse (is there any other way these days?). The network includes windows for a family calendar, e-mail, e-notes, settings and information regarding the household, weather forecast, bookings of common facilities and the daily news.

The exciting part is how it works when you’re away from home. If, for example, you leave for work with a faucet or the gas on, the system alerts you in two ways: by sending you a text message and/or e-mail – whatever you prefer. You can then access your system through your computer and turn off the water or gas. We tried it in the apartment and soon enough the recipient’s cell phone received an SMS and e-mail on her laptop simultaneously.

The only disadvantage we saw is that the system leaves little room for excuses. If you have a scatterbrained husband or wife who keeps forgetting to pick up one of the kids from school, the family calendar will alert him by SMS or e-mail. Grocery lists – oh, all right, love notes, too – can be sent on a regular basis. Imagine every Monday receiving, alongside jokes on President Arroyo’s height, the same message: "Tofu from Hap Chang, chicken from Savory, detergent from Eunilane, and for God’s sake, we’re missing one child again at the dinner table."

The network lets you monitor household consumption on a daily, weekly, monthly or yearly basis. The user can also view the average consumption in the building. As for the laundry room, the key is electronic, so once you’re booked you’re the only one who can enter at your timeslot. The network simplifies coordination and, contrary to tech-phobics, makes for imaginative communication.

How secure is all your information from hackers? The e2-Home is connected via cable from your apartment to the Electrolux center. Granted that no burglar is interested your grocery list (or, heaven forbid, your laundry schedule), there are information too private to share with other proles. Johann Zita of Electrolux’s e2-Home says the security is on the same level of a bank. The system is always on and functions in a closed broadband loop. If the house is broken into, it sends a message to whoever you want to receive the alert – a private security company, yourself or your neighbor – up to 10 people – plus the gas is turned off, the water supply is turned off and the energy is lowered.

All this comes at a cost. Vallgossen is one of the most expensive real estate blocks in Stockholm. A 108-square-meter, three-bedroom unit costs 4.4 million Swedish kroners (around P22 million) or a monthly rental of 4,000 kroners (P20,000). Yet if you think about real estate prices in Makati, Vallgossen is actually not such a bad deal.

As exciting as the future home is, life in the Philippines is much more grounded in third-world reality – and 20th-century reality at that. But hey, Electrolux is back on our shores with products that are technologically groundbreaking and designed to fit all types of homes, so there’s hope yet for the availability of such playthings for the home.

Founded in Sweden in 1912, Electrolux produced the world’s first vacuum cleaner. It has expanded into a company that produces more than 55 million products a year in 150 countries. It is the biggest producer of white goods – refrigerators, freezers, cookers, washing machines, dishwashers, air-conditioners, microwave ovens, and floor-care products.

In the Philippines, Electrolux started operations more than 20 years ago through direct selling, mainly vacuum cleaners. Everyone still knows the song ("I’m gonna knock on your door…") and the salesman wearing a clip-on tie.

In 1992, however, the direct sales business was rebranded and divested. Electrolux owns such familiar brands as Kelvinator, which is produced under license by Concepcion Industries, and White-Westinghouse which was under Philacor until 1998.

Last month, Electrolux was relaunched in the Philippines and today, you will find its products in home-appliance centers in Luzon and Visayas like Abenson and Automatic Center. How are the prices? Slightly higher than most brands and lower than others but quality wise – well, this is a company that is backed by 90 years of experience in home and professional appliances. Added to that, they’re the market leader in Europe with such brands as Zanussi and AEG, and No. 3 in the US with top brands Fridgidaire and Eureka.

You can be sure Electrolux is here for the long haul. The company is aggressively expanding in Asia Pacific. With the markets opening up in China, India and Southeast Asia, Electrolux is following today’s business model of thinking globally and acting locally.

Even with the design, or maybe especially with the design, local preferences and cultures are respected. Christian Klingspor, who heads Electrolux’s design team, says "it will take a couple of generations" before preferences become universal. And as a designer, that’s just fine with him. "Even in Europe, the designs are very different. The kitchen in Italy is not the same as in France or Germany. In Switzerland, you can find all types, because you have four languages. Then the Scandinavian way of cooking is different. All these different cultures. And yet even our designer from Bangkok – we speak the same language, we talk about forms and shapes and different aspects from a design point of view. But he brings aspects of a different market condition. He brings different design goals."

One can say a refrigerator is a refrigerator, right? Wrong. The technology may be similar from one country to another, but what you do beyond it accounts for a whole lot. In China, for instance, the refrigerators are given a twist of fun (and kitsch) with a ref’s interchangeable front panel where you can put your bigger-than-life wedding photo to decorate your kitchen. (Now let’s see him bring home his mistress!) In India, the colors come in deep blues and greens. In the Philippines, we want more of the white and neutral colors for the mass market, and industrial-looking models for condo dwellers.

"Local taste is important," says Klingspor. "In the coming years, we are going to set up a design center in Shanghai, serving first of all the Chinese market, which is huge. Then I think we have to do something in Southeast Asia and we have plans to expand there."

So if you’ve noticed the new ad for a ref with a suckling pig inside – that’s an Electrolux product under the brand White-Westinghouse. The product is in touch with local needs, has a lot of Swedish panache, and global appeal.