Meal time has become a frantic occasion in today’s households – it's the place where the chief cook must deal with varying dietary needs and restrictions in an ever-compressing time frame.

Technology has enabled the addition of more and more activities to consumers' already busy lives, and getting the day-to-day tasks like grocery shopping and meal preparation done in a traditional sense is becoming more difficult.

As the kitchen remains the hub of activity in any home it is the place everyone in the household passes through, stops, and gathers, at least a couple times per day – it’s critical that it evolves.

In kitchens of tomorrow, food prep will get easier. Smart appliances link to ordering systems to ensure the freshest ingredients are on hand and the kitchen intelligence will also assure that the ingredients match dietary needs and desires. Not only will the kitchen be stocked properly, it will be able to schedule around the busy working schedules, preheating the oven at the right moment or notifying someone when it’s time to come eat.

Scenes can be set with voice commands – dimming the lights for a not-quite-awake-yet morning crew and turning on the morning news, or bringing the lights up and playing music for a party group. Water flow is triggered with just the right gesture using Kohler Sensate faucet that is enabled with Kohler Konnect, which responds to commands to turn the water on, start filling a pot, and then to turn it off. When the doorbell rings, the chief cook can see who is there by just asking Google Home.

Many of these solutions, including the latest smart-home appliances from Whirlpool, are available today and are incorporated into the BUILDER KB Home ProjeKt, Where Tomorrow Lives. As the New Construction Consumer Housing Trends Report from the Zillow Group points out, 72% of new home buyers want to buy new construction so that they can trick out the kitchen, and that's what KB Home has done.

The home builder is making it easy for set up and for ongoing management. In a 2017 Parks Associates report, Smart Kitchens: Intelligent Planning Shopping and Cooking, one-fifth of smart appliances owners had problems during the set up process, and 62% wanted professional help. With that in mind, KB Home plans to provide in-person support services for orientation, and ongoing support for six months.

Here in this short video, Kelly Safis, general manager of builder sales at Whirlpool, talks about the transformation of kitchens in the future – not only for convenience but also for health.

In a research survey with more than 2,000 households for the BUILDER KB Home ProjeKt, 82% of the respondents said that groceries, food and dining out were the biggest items in their monthly budget contributing to their overall health and well-being. The technologies in the smart kitchens will help mitigate those expenses but giving the household exposure to expiration dates, by using ingredients in new ways, by offering better recipes focused on health goals.

Features in the BUILDER KB Home ProjeKt, Where Tomorrow Lives, like the Whirlpool app, connect a smart wall oven with the Yummly®app for recipes catered to the home owner’s needs.

In the same survey, more than three-quarters of households believe that housing’s contribution to their health and wellness could be improved, meaning there is a ripe opportunity to show new home buyers how a home can reduce their medical costs.

Register to visit the home in February in Las Vegas now at www.builderonline.com/kbhomeprojekt.

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