Talking Washers and Dryers

In BWeek, More on work by Kenmore having appliances report their maintenance issues remotely. We experimented with a number of these appliances in the innovation centers. Aware and online appliances have been developed by a number of firms, but consumers are not in general willing to pay considerable premiums for such devices. The new approaches described do not permanently connect the appliance to the net, but use an existing fairly low tech connection, like a telephone, to transmit problem codes to aid repair. Will appliances eventually live online? I think so, but not quite yet.