Consumers still warming up to idea of the smart home

At the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week, LG unveiled a series of household appliances that can receive, interpret and send texts: a washing machine that, when asked, reports how much time is left in a cycle; or a refrigerator that alerts the owner when food is about to expire.

These are among several recent product announcements surrounding the smart home a futuristic vision of households constantly monitoring their own activity, alerting the owners smartphone when windows are opened, electricity left on, or clothes are done drying.

In the past year, start-ups, technology giants and telecommunications companies have made their own smart-home bids, according to Gartner analyst Fernando Elizalde. But compared with the rapid development of new products, consumer adoption has been slow as people gradually become more comfortable with the smart home, he added in an e-mail.

That hasnt stopped companies from jumping in.

At CES, Lowes promoted Iris, a network that lets customers manage the data generated by disparate WiFi-enabled devices, such as thermostats or appliances. Whirlpool showed off a washing machine hooked up to an app that lets people donate to a charity such as Habitat for Humanity every time they do laundry.

This past February, Google acquired Nest a start-up selling thermostats that can adjust to a users preferences for $3.2 billion.

In November, French telecommunications company Orange announced Homelive, a solution letting customers manage their appliances remotely. And in June, Apple announced HomeKit, an operating system framework on which software and hardware developers can build smart-home systems.

It could be years before consumers have a real digital household, according to recent reports, and progress is likely to be incremental.

A Gartner consumer survey from the summer found that 20percent of respondents have one or more smart-home devices. About 16 percent of these had only one device, while just about 4 percent had two or more. A Nielsen survey conducted in the second quarter of 2014 found about 6percent of respondents used smart-home technology: Within these, about 61 percent used wireless home security, 54 percent used it for automating some function (such as adjusting heat or lights), 25 percent used connected appliances and 27 percent used wireless speaker systems.

Still, home technology sales are increasing, according to the Consumer Electronics Association, the Arlington-based trade group that organizes CES. Home technologies generated an estimated $1.9 billion in sales in 2014, up from $1.7 billion in 2013, according to CEA.

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Consumers still warming up to idea of the smart home