The Connected Kitchen?

Your customer will want a wired kitchen when they see how it earns its keep.

Josh Stewart has a computer that's constantly connected to the Internet in his kitchen. It consists of a flat panel monitor on a counter, wired to a computer tower in an upper cabinet. "We use it as a phone book, we look up recipes based on what food we have available, and we order out when we don't feel like cooking."

Whether such convenience represents a fast lane on the information highway or a technological cul-de-sac remains to be seen. Stewart is the sales manager of the Tech Touch design center for Village Homes of Colorado, a builder that has perhaps done more than any other to sell the benefits of home tech to its customers. In spite of this effort, he estimates that only one of 10 home buyers wants a computer in the kitchen. "It still isn't as popular as you would think it would be."

Low demand notwithstanding, Village Homes believes where early adopters go, the rest of us will follow. That's why the home builder pulls two cable lines and two CAT 5 data lines to every kitchen and places the outlets wherever the customers want them. "If there is a desk in the kitchen, the outlets go there. Otherwise, people generally ask for them to be put under a wall cabinet," says Stewart.

Today, most people who want access in the kitchen simply get a laptop and a wireless router, according to Gary Buckman, sales manager with Your Technology Solution (www.yts.net). "It costs about $50 to make the house wireless with a Linksys wireless router." He says the new, powerful laptops can be located in any convenient place in the kitchen where parents can look up recipes, children can download music and where everyone can check their e-mail.

Stewart predicts more people will want a dedicated kitchen Internet connection when they don't have to sacrifice kitchen real estate to get it. Making that happen is up to equipment manufacturers. For instance, many of his customers already have under-cabinet television sets. As technology advances and television screens morph into computer monitors, he predicts they will replace those sets with flip-down touch monitors that let them watch the news and search for recipes online.

People who actually get a wired kitchen become hooked fast. This April, the Internet Home Alliance completed its Mealtime pilot, in which 20+ families were given connected ovens and refrigerators with built-in Web pads, a grocery delivery service, and a combination TV/PC with a flip-down screen mounted under a cabinet.

At the end of the pilot, the convenience participants most wanted to keep was Internet access. One even said having Internet access in the kitchen gets her family to spend more time there, which of course means they spend more time together. "I can check e-mails and cook while my son is online doing a homework assignment," she said. "The kitchen wasn't the heart of my home before, but it is now."