Tag Archives: consumer goods

An official definition for a “smart home”

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Two companies – Coldwell Banker and CNET – defined the smart home back in May:

Smart Home: A home that is equipped with network-connected products (i.e., “smart products,” connected via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or similar protocols) for controlling, automating and optimizing functions such as temperature, lighting, security, safety or entertainment, either remotely by a phone, tablet, computer or a separate system within the home itself.

In order to be categorized as a smart home, the property must have a smart security feature that either controls access or monitors the property or a smart temperature feature, in addition to a reliable Internet connection. It must also include at least two additional features from this list:

Appliances (smart refrigerators and smart washer / dryers)

Entertainment (smart TVs and TV streaming services)

Heating / Cooling (smart HVAC system, smart fans or vents)

Lighting (smart light bulbs and lighting systems)

Outdoors (smart plant sensors and watering systems)

Safety (smart fire / carbon monoxide detectors and nightlights)

Security (smart locks, smart alarm systems or cameras)

Temperature (smart thermostats)

An interesting list. I would assume some of this is driven by availability of technology as well as which features are already most popular with homeowners: security and temperature. After either one of those, everything else is less common and may be harder for consumers to imagine their value. Will people truly choose a home because it has smart watering systems or a smart dryer? We’re consistently told this is the wave of the future but it will take some time for all of this to become standard.

Additionally, we can continue to ask about what benefits to family life smart homes will bring.

“It’s part of the American identity to have a grill”

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This is the final line in a story on grilling. Here are some updates on the American grilling industry:

Grill sales in America are growing only by low single-digit percentages each year, and the market is nearly 20% smaller than it was a decade ago, according to the research firm IBISWorld.

U.S. grill manufacturers — led by Weber-Stephen Products, maker of the iconic Weber grills — also face stiff competition from imports, which now account for 56% of U.S. sales, up from 46% a decade ago, the IBISWorld data show.

Grill sales are closely tied to changes in the U.S. economy, especially the housing industry. So, not surprisingly, the grill business was hammered between 2008 and 2010 when the housing crisis and severe recession took hold…

The Fourth of July is the most popular day of the year for outdoor grilling, with 76% of grill owners planning to fire up their barbecues on the holiday, the HPBA says. Those summer bookends, Memorial Day and Labor Day, tied for second place at 62%…

And in the heated debate between gas and charcoal, gas has the edge. Gas grills outsold charcoal grills, 57.7% to 40.1%. The remaining 2.2% of grills sold were electric.

Based on this article, then grilling is tied to the single-family home, the lawn and backyard, eating meat, and American holidays. Perhaps it is a symbol of having the leisure time to cook slowly outside. We can add the grill – perhaps the distinctive Weber grill in particular – to other consumer goods that supposedly symbolize the American Dream (McMansions, SUVs, large sodas, fast food, big TVs, etc.).

Yet, other people in the world use grills or outdoor cooking spaces. Are Americans really that unique in this regard? Bon Appetit takes a look at grilling around the world after this introduction:

For Americans, firing up the Weber and grilling up some meat has a distinctly patriotic vibe–we barbecue on the 4th of July, after all, and no image of the American Dream would be complete without a cookout-friendly lawn behind that white picket fence–but we’re not the only ones who pride ourselves on our skill with charcoal and tongs. From satay in Singapore to asado in Argentina, there’s a whole world of grilling out there. You can always find regional variations from city to city, town to town, and family to family, but here are some of the world’s great grilling traditions.

So, perhaps Americans just do the grilling in distinct ways: often in private spaces (backyards of owned homes) at particular times (summer holidays).

Self-driving semis to bring safety, limit unwanted jobs – and lower the costs of products?

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Wired sums up some of the advantages autonomous semis might offer but leaves off a third possible advantages: cheaper shipping costs which leads to cheaper goods.

In 2012 in the US, 330,000 large trucks were involved in crashes that killed nearly 4,000 people, most of them in passenger cars. About 90 percent of those were caused by driver error. “Anything that can get commercial vehicles out of trouble has a lot of value,” says Xavier Mosquet, head of Boston Consulting Group’s North America automotive division.

So it’s no surprise some of the country’s largest freight carriers have in recent years started equipping their vehicles with active safety features like lane control and automatic braking. The economic case for these measures—the predecessors to fuller autonomy—is clear, says Noël Perry, an economist who specializes in transportation and logistics…

Another point in favor of giving robots control is the serious and worsening shortage of humans willing to take the wheel. The lack of qualified drivers has created a “capacity crisis,” according to an October 2014 report by the American Transportation Research Institute. The American Trucking Associations predicts the industry could be short 240,000 drivers by 2022. (There are roughly three million full-time drivers in the US.)

That’s partly because long haul trucking is not an especially pleasant job, and because it takes time and money to earn a commercial driver’s license. The shortage will get worse, Perry says, thanks to a suite of regulations set to take effect in the next few years. A national database to collect company-performed drug and alcohol tests will make it harder for drivers who get in trouble at one job to land another. Speed limiters could keep trucks to a pokey 64 mph. Mandated electronic reporting of hours driven will make it harder to skirt rest rules and drive longer than allowed. These are all good changes from a safety perspective, but they’re not great for profits.

Safety is good and more meaningful jobs might be helpful – though losing a bunch of driving jobs won’t look good to many. But, what about the added benefit of cheaper shipping costs in the long run? Perhaps it will take some time for this technology to become cheap and widely adopted. Yet, if trucks can drive themselves and drivers don’t need to be paid, can’t these trucks run all day long making runs back and forth? And imagine if they could utilize greener technologies as well, limiting fuel costs. Americans like their cheap consumer goods and having everything shipped by semi just a little bit cheaper on store shelves may help Americans enjoy self-driving trucks even more.

American problem and solution: too much stuff? Just buy a bigger house

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Episode 11 of Season 88 of House Hunters opens with this claim from a Jacksonville, Florida couple:

We have a very American problem. We have too much stuff. And we’re going to do the very American solution. Instead of getting rid of some of our stuff, we’re going to just get a bigger house.

This is indeed a very American problem. I’m not sure whether this couple should be applauded for recognizing the issue at hand (how many Americans really recognize they have lots of stuff?) or we should sadly shake our heads at their decision of how to move on. We have a consumer driven economy where Americans own enough stuff to fill lots of self-storage facilities. And the size of new homes have risen over 50% in the last four decades, even as household sizes have decreased. Perhaps the interest in McMansions isn’t about having private space or impressing the neighbors or showing off the owner’s status; perhaps they are about having so many square feet of space that the owner can keep consuming.

As an aside, it might be fascinating to see how many McMansion owners rent self-storage units…

The need for infrastructure to move future freight

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This look at the future of moving freight in the United States suggests there is work to be done in developing the necessary infrastructure:

The scale of the infrastructure that moves our stuff is staggering, yet we hardly notice it beyond appreciating how fast a book has arrived or growing agitated with double-parked delivery trucks. But the ships, trains, trucks, ports, rails, roads, and support structure that facilitates the metabolism of our society will soon be more visible. The Census Bureau estimates a nearly 20 percent population increase by 2040—that’s one new person every 12 seconds who needs and wants stuff…

As ships bring bigger swells of goods and ask for quicker turnaround times, the ports are focusing on how to get those goods off the ship and on the roads or rails faster. So while ships are maximizing economies, ports are focusing on efficiency. “We are using less to move more,” said Curtis Foltz, executive director of the Georgia Ports Authority, echoing the company tagline (“we use less to move more”). The authority recently converted as much equipment as possible from diesel to electric, including cranes that generate 30 percent of their own power from gravity, and efficient rack systems for growing numbers of “reefers,” or refrigerated containers…

The DOT estimates an 88 percent increase in rail freight demand by 2035, and Forbes recently predicted that rail will become the most important logistics system of the 21st Century. The reliability and efficiency of rail is already eating into trucking’s market share, as trains are increasingly used for hauls as short as 500 miles, formerly only the domain of trucks. But increasing capacity of the country’s 140,000-mile rail network and its upkeep will require huge capital expenditure, estimated by the Federal Railroad Administration to reach $149 billion over the next 20 years…

The Federal Highway Administration has some numbers to consider: In 2011, approximately 11 million trucks moved 16.1 billion tons of freight worth $14.9 trillion. This level of activity caused recurring peak-period congestion on 10 percent of the National Highway System. Now consider that commercial vehicles currently account for only 9 percent of all vehicle highway miles traveled. Think rush hour is bad now? The FHA estimates that in the next 30 years, there will be 60 percent more trucks, translating to significant slowing on 28,000 miles of the NHS during peak hours, and stop-and-go conditions on an additional 46,000 miles.

There may be a lot of interest in driverless cars but it just be “old” technologies like ships and railroads that keep the flow of goods moving as well as large trucks. When you think about, the whole system is quite amazing: transporting enough goods for 300+ million people requires a lot of coordination and energy.

It will be interesting to see who pays for these upgraded structures; improving ports, for example, could be economic boosts but they are not usually sexy projects and there are plenty of more immediate quality-of-life issues that get more attention (education, health care, etc.) Would consumers complain if the cost of their relatively cheap goods went up to pay for some of these improvements?

Buying or renting smaller spaces related to less consumer spending

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If Americans turn away from McMansions and toward smaller homes or renting, they may also spend less on other items:

The apartment/renting moves have two implication for consumer spending. First, less space means less stuff. Second, rental units typically aren’t fitted with high-end appliances and finishes.

Looking at real spending for certain home goods, the data show annual increases in spending on items like appliances, furniture and window treatments are averaging less than they did during the boom years. That means that, like home construction, demand for home goods isn’t supplying the boost to economic growth that it did before the recession.

The Demand Institute, a joint initiative of The Conference Board and Nielsen, looked into the shift’s impact on consumer spending in a 2012 study. The DI analysis expected demand for home goods to pick up as housing recovers, but “value-oriented brands are likely to see the greatest growth,” the report said, a short-run trend “driven by landlords and renters who want to spend less on fixtures and furnishings than homeowners [do].”

Renting households also tend to own fewer vehicles, said the DI report, in part because their finances are worse than homeowners but also because parkingspots are limited. That shift will limit future car sales

All together, this links spending in one large area – housing – to spending in other sectors. Take owning a large suburban house. Such a home tends to support a more robust housing industry including construction and real estate. Such homes are often built in more sprawling suburban neighborhoods, leading to more cars and more road construction. Bigger homes require more furnishings, landscaping, and opportunities for improvements and repairs, supporting more suburban big box stores and other retailers.

I do wonder how much this is a case of spurious correlation versus indicating broader shifts: is this all linked to people having less disposable income? If they feel they have less money, they might make different choices about housing as well as consumer goods. Or, due to the economic crisis and relatively stagnant income for many Americans, consumers might be shifting their preferences in a number of ways that could upset traditionally important economic sectors. It could be a move away from expensive and more durable goods (houses, cars) toward electronics (like smartphones) and entertainment (the creative class).

American poor can buy cheap consumer goods but have a harder time purchasing important items

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I argued a ways back that Americans in poverty who own electronic goods illustrate the ubiquity of these goods in American life. Here is some evidence: the relative cost of consumer goods has dropped in recent decades while goods associated with leaving poverty, like higher education, have increased.

This is the tension at the core of modern impoverishment, which Annie Lowrey takes on in the New York Times today. The wonders of globalization, modern manufacturing, and ruthless Walmart-style supply-chain management have made the stuff we buy to fill our homes and time much cheaper, and as a result the poor now enjoy a level of material well-being that would have seemed unimaginable decades ago. The safety net is also infinitely more generous compared with the early 1960s, before Lyndon Johnson launched his war on poverty. Yet, because the prices of key services are spiraling out of control, the poor’s lot is still rather hopeless. The NYT captures it in this very, very long graph…

nyt_cost_graph

New York Times

Here’s what makes this trend so treacherous: Prices are rising on the very things that are essential for climbing out of poverty.

Another way to think about it might be that most Americans have a baseline of consumer goods they own. But, to move up in status or to purchase goods and services that can help one achieve mobility, more resources are needed.

It is too bad Internet service is not indexed here.

If one were to approach this from a Marxist point of view, perhaps the purpose of cheap goods is to keep people distracted while social life and economic life declines or is more exploitative. What is there to complain about what the typical person has a smartphone or a large LCD or LED TV and lots of viewing options?

A McMansion and a Megamansion have a spirited debate

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Listen as a 9,000 square foot McMansion and a 30,000 Megamansion debate their respective virtues. Who should really be called ostentatious? At least they can agree on their dislike for a nearby apartment building.

This is a funny series: you can also find a conversation between two trash-talking classic pieces of furniture, an argument between a blender and espresso machine, and two NYC bikes duke it out. Here is more about the short series:

Comedy writer Tom Saunders (Arrested Development, The Larry Sanders Show, Just Shoot Me), on the other hand, has long fantasized that the stuff around us actually talks, and he has created a series for DnA that proves it.

In Everything Talks, buildings and objects (often brand-name designer products) bicker over who’s best. They puff out their chests, brag and trash talk, trying to best their rival. The segment spotlights the thrill of rivalry and in doing so has fun with the status we humans attach to our objects.

Here is how Tom describes Everything Talks: “The idea that we could hear an actual conversation between, for example, a Vitamix blender and a Rancho Silvia espresso maker was science fiction only a few years ago. At last, a new computer app (connected to an ultra sensitive listening device) is able to translate, amplify and record otherwise inaudible discussions between inanimate objects without them knowing we are listening in!

Throw in some of the magic from The Twilight Zone and these braggart status could soon be taking over the world…

One part of this that is funny is that while humans use consumer goods as status symbols and measure themselves against others with these objects, they don’t always do this directly. This can be done through intermediaries or in one’s own head for a long time while trying to not let others know this is happening. This reminds me of the findings of the ethnography The Moral Order of a Suburb where a sociologist finds that suburbanites tend to get along by avoiding direct confrontation. In debates over McMansions, this might take the form of going to local government and objecting or writing a letter to the editor (though I’m sure there are occasionally face-to-face arguments about McMansions).

 

Why Americans have the world’s largest refrigerators

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Move over McMansions, hello world’s largest refrigerators:

Americans have the biggest refrigerators in the world — 17.5 cubic feet of volume on average. The size of our refrigerators is followed closely by Canadians while the rest of the world lags far behind. Since our refrigerators run day and night, they use more energy than any other household appliance, which means their size has ramifications for the planet’s rate of global warming. However, the enormous popularity of refrigerators in the United States is an indicator of the value of refrigeration both for preserving the food we buy and for the convenience that comes when such huge machines are stocked. The fact that we put perishable food in the refrigerator (even sometimes when it doesn’t belong there) suggests that we still remember refrigeration’s most basic advantage: to prevent food from spoiling before we consume it.

While the usefulness of refrigerators explains their prevalence, it does not explain their size. Most people would agree that fresh food tastes better than anything that’s been kept in a refrigerator for even a short amount of time. So why then would anyone want a weeks’ worth of perishable food stored in their kitchen at one time? Are Americans slaves to convenience? While our large refrigerators do limit the number of shopping trips we have to take, they also make it possible for us to consume a much greater variety of foods than we ever did without them in our kitchens…

Because the average American family goes grocery shopping once a week, a gigantic refrigerator is required to keep all the perishables they acquire on that trip. Household refrigerators differ greatly from country to country because the characteristics that citizens in different countries want in their refrigerators are reflections of their cultures so at this point in history once weekly shopping trips is an almost uniquely American habit. While Americans and Canadians want storage capacity, European countries are generally more concerned with energy efficiency or the cost of their operation. Since Americans have always had abundant natural resources (like food), a large refrigerator has become closely identified around the world with the American way of life.

While large refrigerators are a recent development, ice and refrigeration have actually played an oversized role in American culture for a very long time. Before refrigerators, American iceboxes kept our food cold, at least as long as nobody opened them too often. “Who ever heard of an American without an icebox?,” wrote the British travel writer Winifred James in 1914. “It is his country’s emblem. It asserts his nationality as conclusively as the Stars and Stripes afloat from his roof-tree, besides being much more useful in keeping his butter cool.” “The Hard Times Refrigerator,” sold by the Boston Scientific Refrigerator in 1877 for people who were facing difficult economic circumstances was nothing but a wooden chest big enough to store fifty pounds of ice.

It sounds like decisions in American about other areas in life – priority on convenience and having food already at hand, food centers distant from concentrations of population and innovations in transporting cold foods, the suburbs and driving (?) – led to these large refrigerators. I’m not quite sure what prompted this: “Americans had an early collective desire for cold things.” This could be a new rallying cry: “American Exceptionalism: the biggest refrigerators!”

There seems to be a pattern here, especially when compared to the rest of the world: big refrigerators, big houses, big SUVs, Big Gulps, big land mass, big box stores…

Seven square feet of self-storage for every American

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The decluttering industry can rejoice: Americans have enough stuff for the self-storage industry to have seven square feet for each American. I’ve always wondered about the relationship between bigger homes and more stuff. Which comes first: having more stuff leads to a bigger house or having bigger houses leads acquiring more to fill them? I suspect the two are mutually reinforcing. Americans generally have quite a few things, even poorer Americans, thanks to general prosperity and a consumer-oriented society which kicked into high gear starting in the early 1900s. As a kid, I liked looking repeatedly at the book Material World which had families around the globe pose for a picture in front of their house with all of the stuff from their house piled around them. The average American family had quite a bit while many around the globe had very little.

This bit of data would bolster the arguments of some who suggest big homes are just a symptom of a larger problem: a society that likes consuming things.