Recently in Household Category

If you answered "a power outlet" then you won't be interested in the "Whirlpool Centralpark Connection" - a new $2000 fridge/freezer whose claim to high-tech magnificence is exactly that: they put a power outlet on the top.

Not just any power outlet of course, it's a power outlet in the correct position to accept one of a bunch of hokey add-ons that other companies are coming out with.

The first add-on available is a $249 8 inch LCD photo frame from Ceiva, other add-ons currently at the prototype stage are an ipod dock with speakers, a WiFi web tablet, and a Qnote message center.

I see two flaws with this product:

1) it is on top of the refrigerator: not exactly convenient for the more vertically challenged housewives (or househusbands).

2) What happens when you are displaying photos, but your son wants to charge his iPod, and your husband wants to use the WiFi web tablet?

I think I just gave Whirlpool their next revolutionary product idea: a refrigerator with TWO power outlets on top!!

Whirlpool Centralpark Connection at CEPro

You know those fancy Teppanyaki restaurants where they cook on a hot plate in the middle of the table while throwing knives around?

Well now you can duplicate the experience at home with Cook-N-Dine tables (preferably without the knife throwing - leave that for the experts).

How does it work? well some fancy techno-gizmo heating system causes the special steel in the center of the table to form a concave pit that holds all the food and juices in one area while keeping the surrounding metal table cool.

Want one for your boat? well we've got you covered: their new "MarinYaki" boat table features a 20" x 15" cooking surface..... just don't try using it while underway unless you want a pile of boiling hot stir-fry chicken vegetables and sauce dumped in your lap by an unexpected wave.

Teppanyaki style grilling via appliancist

Asians love to keep their private parts sparkling clean and the latest bidet being shown at Koreannovation in New York takes thing one step further.

Not only does it have all the usual computerized Asian bidet wizardry such as pressure sensors, underwater nightlights, front and back nozzles, pressure adjustment, and automatic stool bacteria analysis, it comes with a remote control as well......

A remote control with a long enough range to use outside the bathroom, perhaps on poor unsuspecting family members or house guests.

What will those wacky Koreans come up with next?

More toilet humor at Gizmodo

Here's an interesting concept: a fuel cell powered vacuum cleaner backpack.

I like the idea as cleaning the house gets really annoying when you have to keep dragging the power cord from room to room plugging in unplugging ad-infinitum.

The backpack part of it is a bit weird though: a single shoulder strap holding up a rapidly spinning motor, ethanol fuel cells, and a pile of dirt sounds like a recipe for back pain.

Fuel cell powered vacuum cleaner backpack via trendsnow

It's been a while since we featured one of the many impractical ideas regularly uncovered by Yanko Design but we had to bring this one to you.....

It is a dresser (or bedside table) with the bottom drawer full of living (not for long) herb plants supposedly kept alive and healthy in that poorly ventilated dark enclosed environment by a low voltage bulb.

Commenter "Vaness" makes a good point saying:

"Awesome idea, but I see a fundamental design flaw - herbs will have a serious problem surviving in such low light conditions. From the picture it is clear that they haven't been in there very long. Mildrew and other fungus, along with elongation of stems will both be serious problems. Herbs by their nature are high-light plants - in less than idea conditions they will suffer disease problems. Also, their aromatic compounds develop best in high light surroundings."

To which the designer gave the non-response:

"simple answer that one Vaness pop a better bulb in their."

I get the impression he didn't really think things through to their logical conclusion when coming up with this idea.

herb garden in your dresser at Yanko Design

Sony just launched a new WiFi enabled photo frame over in Japan.

The VFG-CP1 features a 7" 800x480 screen, card reader, 512MB of memory, and a USB port.

It doesn't just show photos though, it can play music, display the time, show RSS feeds, and get you the latest weather forecast.

The VFG-CP1 will be available on Japan on May 17th and will cost around $258.

(via engadget)

Irons are a necessity: don't iron your clothes and your boss thinks you are a lazy hippie, iron your clothes and you look smart and presentable and get a promotion.

A downside to irons has always been that they take ages to cool off so you leave them sitting there while you watch the kids and pets to make sure they don't go play with the cord.

Now you can just put the iron away and forget about it in the Sunbeam hot iron storage case: it's made of fancy heat resistant plastics, has adjustable silicon pads to hold the iron, and has a locking lid to keeps the kids/pets out.

Great idea and only $20 at Sunbeam

(via ohgizmo)

iLuv is one of the multitude of companies who jumped on the Apply iPod iMac iPhone bandwagon by putting the letter i in front of everything.

They just announced two alarm clock radios that receive HD radio broadcasts: the i168 at $89.99 and the i169 at $169.99. What's the difference I hear you ask? the i169 looks cooler and has an iPod dock so you can listen to your iTunes when the iAlarm wakes iYou in time to go to your iJob.

Me? I'm "blessed" with a built-in alarm clock that wakes me at 4.40am every morning, even on the weekends......

Press release:

Now this is a neat house gadget for any ultramodern city dweller: it looks like a window but press the magic button and it folds out to become a balcony.

The bloomframe balcony designed by Hofman Dujardin Architects won a 2008 Red Dot Design Award and can be customized and made to order. There is no price listed but I doubt it is cheap.

(bloomframe, via likecool)

The Izona CookSurface from Fisher & Paykel is an innovative blending of the beauty of a glass ceramic cooktop with the efficiency and controllability of gas compared to electric cooking.

Turn on the gas and the burner rises up out of the ceramic cooktop along with 5 pan supports, when you're done cooking the burner and supports disappear back into the cooksurface.

The only negative we see is that space isn't used efficiently with the large cooksurface only offering 3 burners.

(fisherpaykel via appliancist)

Digital Home Thoughts has reviewed some speakers I had never heard of before: the Orb audio Home Theater Speaker System that retails for $549 and up.

Here's what they thought:

"When it's all said and done, the bottom line is that the Orb Audio speakers impressed me so much that I'm going to purchase my own set of these speakers. There's no higher recommendation I can give than to say that this is the product I personally want to use. The Orb Audio speakers are not only smaller than the Harman Kardon speakers I had before, they sound better, look better, and made me never want to set up the old system again. While the overall package can get a bit pricey if you need two pairs of their HOSS stands, if you're looking for a quality system - or an upgrade from that horrendously bad Home Theatre In-A-Box system you might have - Orb Audio has a range of solutions at every price point that will allow you to enjoy movies, music, games in ways you never have before. And because their system is so modular, you can start with a minimal Mod1 system and as long as you get the right kind of stands or mounts, you can add more speakers to your system over time. That's a powerful advantage that I haven't seen in any retail speaker solution, and is the cherry on top of what is already a luscious mix of tasty audio."

(full review at digitalhomethoughts)

The power goes out, it is 100 degrees outside, your weird neighbor is already outside on the porch in his underwear while his wife tries to cool him with a newspaper, how do you stay cool?

With your solar powered fan of course!

The $70 portable solar fan from Maplin not only operates a 4W fan for 6 to 8 hours on full power it doubles as a lantern, alarm clock, and phone/mp3 charger.

(maplin via ubergizmo)

In the lawn mowing business time is money: the faster you can mow an acre the more lawns you can mow in a day.

The Dixie Chopper Xcaliber probably has a lot of lawn guys excited, not only because it's 38hp engine 15mph top speed and 74" cutting deck give a mowing capacity of 9.2 acres an hour, but also because it comes with springer forks, electric deck lift, and a 12 volt adapter for an ipod, cellphone, or portable beer fridge.

How much will all of that set you back? $11,000!

(dixiechopper, via i4u)

Are you one of those people that absolutely needs their daily espresso?

Now you can always have an espresso with the handpresso wild portable espresso machine:

"The patented high-pressure extraction system uses hand-held pumping to prime the device, ensuring the correct 16 bar pressure needed to produce the perfect cup of espresso.

Light and durable, the Handpresso can be stored easily in a drawer, backpack or with camping gear. The Handpresso, uses E.S.E standard pods, which ensures a premium quality in every cup, no matter where you are. This also eliminates the mess associated with espresso making when on the go."

The handpresso wild is just 8.7" x 3.9" x 2.8" and weighs 1.2lb. It is being imported into the US by importika where it costs $149.99.

(via appliancist)

"ding-dong" not good enough for you?

Check out the iChime customizable doorbell: wire it up to your doorbell and play one of dozens of included songs, or connect up your mp3 (or digital voice recorder) through the headphone jack and record anything you want to use as a doorbell chime: your dog barking, a shotgun being racked, blasphemy, potty humor - the world is your oyster.

The iChime costs $90 and delivers hours of fun for all the family, plus for just $35 more you can add an extra speaker in another room so everyone can get in on the endless mirth and amusement.

(via uberreview)

This interesting looking outdoor table from Intelligent Forms is actually a large outdoor solar charging station for gadgets.

It is waterproof and (assuming good sunlight) soaks up enough power in a year to charge a cellphone 6800 times or an average laptop 168 times.

It has an LCD screen, bluetooth, USB, auto and regular AC style charging ports, is about 43" x 30" x 18", is custom made to order, and costs about $14k!

(via boingboing)

Sometimes you come across a gadget idea just is just wrong.

Take this toaster for example, just turn it on, let the wires heat up and place your hand, I mean your bread, on the extremely hot surface. What could go wrong.

Forget waterboarding terrorists, just get them to try making their breakfast on this thing and they will be singing like canaries in no time.

(via appliancist)

One thing I found weird about the UK when I lived there: all the recipes were based on weight of food instead of volume. Instead of just measuring a cup of a tablespoon you had to get out some scales and add little amounts until you had the correct weight. A completely ridiculous system.

One problem with the system is what do you do when you have an expensive ingredient like saffron or truffles, or need a little herb/spice? generally you just wing it and throw in a pinch instead of the US system where you can easily measure a quarter or an eighth of a teaspoon.

There is now a solution. They could have just switched to measuring but instead they invented a measuring spoon with a built in electronic scale to measure as little as 1/10 of a gram of your precious ingredients.

In the US the only people who measure "food" by weight are drug dealers, and they will be happy to hear the spoon is only £18.50 ($37) +shipping, or roughly 10 minutes profit from sell crystals to the local meth addicts.

(via ohgizmo)

In an ideal world your home would have been wired for a modern security system when it was built, but for most us it isn't an ideal world and we are put off of having a security system installed by the cost and inconvenience of having someone making holes in our walls to run wires.

Home Heartbeat from Eaton promises to solve that problem; it is a wireless (802.15.4 zigbee) security system that appears simple to install and use.

Every component is wireless (from door sensors, to water shutoffs, to electrical outlet monitors) and is monitored from a central base station and home key.

The home key is a little gadget you can carry with your keys and it shows you the status of all your sensors as long as it is within 60 to 90 feet of the base station; beyond that you can get the base station to send SMS messages to your cell phone.

More info about Home Heartbeat

Jeremy at Livedigitally went to the Electronic House Expo show in Long Beach CA to see what is new in the world of Home Automation.

Amongst other interesting home gadgets they took a look at the DigitalDeck whole house PVR solutions, Pelham Sloane all-in-one PC/LCDs, and the Philips Streamium networked audio/video system.

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