Change It Up Don't Hide. Ride the Wave of the Future With These High- Tech, High-Performance Home Products

BY JEANNE MOONEY

THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT

ORLANDO - Some people embrace technology and innovation. Others grump their way toward change.

A bevy of products and prototypes made a splash last week at the International Builders Show. They might help us decide in which camp we belong.

Warning: Some of these products may prompt groans about Americans' vanity, indolence or idle fascination with gadgets.

Hold those gibes. It lends the appearance of being a stick-in- the-mud. It also fails to anticipate the future. If these products become standard, many of us will need an advanced technical degree, help from a know-it-all, or worse, a serious study of the owner's manual.

So then, here's a look at some aspiring icons of the kitchen, bath and beyond.

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ProSun International's Sunshower: For a cool $10,900, you can bronze without breaking a sweat. The St. Petersburg, Fla.-based firm promises to turn the shower into a private solarium. Five lamps set in a vertical panel beam tanning rays from head to toe while you soap and rinse.

The video on the Web site www.prosunsunshower.com shows a bathing beauty without shades on, or anything else for that matter. But ProSun said protective UV eyewear must be worn while using the appliance.

The appliance was a darling of the Kitchen/Bath Industry Show in April, when it won a Best New Bath Product award. At the builders show, ProSun took a small space in a far quadrant of one of two huge exposition halls.

"We almost got the last booth that was available," said Leanne Borowski , national sales manager for the firm's spa and bath division.

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Gaggenau's lift oven (pictured on the cover): If this product takes hold, Hansel and Gretel's nightmares are over. This firm, with its headquarters in Germany, has redesigned the oven in a way that is bound to thwart the most wicked fairy tale witches.

Gaggenau mounted its sleek, stainless steel oven on the wall and used the bottom of the appliance as the loading portal.

Press a button and the glass ceramic base of the oven drops. Breads, pizzas and croissants can be baked without a cooking sheet. Meats and main dishes still need a pan, but lifting the holiday bird from the countertop to the base is a short, easy heave-ho. When loaded, the base retracts into the oven.

The lift oven offers 11 heating modes and is self-cleaning. Vanessa Trost markets Gaggenau products. She dismissed any notion of gimmickry. The oven is safer than conventional models because no one must reach into a hot box, she said. And because heat rises, the oven temperature remains stable even when the base is open, she said. "It's very energy efficient."

The lift oven has been available in Europe for about a year, Trost said, and will be ready for order in the U.S. through upscale kitchen and bath suppliers around July for about $3,300.

A virtual tour of the oven is available at www.siemensappliances.co.uk/ Gaggenau and Siemens are brands of BSH Home Appliances Corp.

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Delta Faucet Co.'s Illusions: If the chatter around your bar or prep sink has started to wane, here's a glimmer of hope: Delta is working on a disappearing faucet that's sure to start a buzz.

Illusions is only a concept, but it got a test run at the builders show. The faucet rises from a hole in the sink with the toggle of a joystick. Want the water to run? Work the joystick. Want the faucet to retract? You know the drill.

You and your guests will have to defer your fun at the bar - even dodge those obtrusive above-counter faucets - until Delta's engineers work out a few kinks. Right now, the prototype is too costly to bring to market, said Colin Thielmann , a Delta product manager.

The price he's heard bandied about? Thousands, he said.

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Whirlpool's Central Park: Many people plaster their ice boxes with family photos, calendars and magnets from the corner pizza shop. Whirlpool has bowed to that custom, maybe even tidied up the space a bit, with a plug-and-play platform for a digital picture frame.

By late October, Whirlpool hopes to be selling a docking station called Central Park for the picture frames, said Matthew Newton , an innovation consultant for the firm.

The docking station would hitch to the top of the freezer door and cost less than $50, Newton said. Consumers would snap their own digital picture frame into it. The stainless steel, side-by-side, 25 cubic-foot refrigerator that hosted the docking station retails for about $1,900, Newton said.

Whirlpool has big ideas for other docking stations, too. A DVD player, an iPod or MP3 player and a cell phone may be cradled in separate, future stations, Newton said. A platform for the DVD player, although only a prototype, was on display at the builders show.

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Evolution Excel by Emerson Electric Co.'s InSinkErator: Okay, the garbage disposal isn't the sexiest or most used appliance in the home. But if you've been pulverizing your potato peels at a rackety noise level, it may be time to upgrade.

Evolution Excel boasts that it can grind most any food scraps without jamming. Rib bones, corncobs and celery go merrily down the drain and off to the sewage treatment plant with hardly a gurgle.

You can listen to Evolution in a shredding match with a standard model from the InSinkErator lineup at www.insinkerator.com/isejsp/ product/selector.jsp. The firm launched Evolution Excel in the summer. It sells for about $300, said Carol Baricovich , manager of brand communications.

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GE Monogram custom hood insert : Come March, GE plans to market an over-the-stove ventilation system that will allow consumers to build a customized hood around it.

The insert allows consumers greater design flexibility rather than buying a finished canopy and vent, said Allison Eckelkamp , a GE spokeswoman.

The insert will be marketed in three sizes - 30, 36 and 48 inches wide - and will attach directly to ductwork. The control panel can be mounted to the hood insert, the cooktop or a nearby wall.

Estimated retail prices vary according to the insert's size and range from about $950 to $1,550, according to GE.

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Fafco Inc. of Chico, Calif., created a stir at the builders show with the launch of a system that harnesses solar energy to heat water for the home. Meant as an aid to the hot water heater, the Hot2o system fits in a box and can be installed in a weekend by an accomplished do-it-yourselfer.

Fafco's Dave Harris boasted that the system qualifies for a federal tax credit equal to 30 percent of its $1,800 cost, or $600.

The system also can cut water heating costs. On its Web site, www.hot2o.com , Fafco said the system will reduce the average homeowner's water heating costs by more than 50 percent.

Hot2o pumps water in a closed loop system from the roof, where it runs through lightweight, polymer solar panels, to a heat exchanger. Water from the hot water tank is heated in the exchanger and never mixes with water from the roof. Metal straps secure the panels to the roof. The system runs automatically when solar energy can heat the water.

Fafco also makes a larger system called Revolution, www.fafco.com. It is expected to be sold and installed by contractors for $3,900 to $5,900 , Harris estimated.

nReach Jeanne Mooney at (757) 446-2043 or jeanne.mooney@pilotonline. com

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