Get yourself connected: GE at CES 2011

Showing off smart appliances, an EV charging station and a pint-sized home energy management system, GE gives attendees of the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show a glimpse of the 'Connected Home of the Future'.

Tue, Jan 11 2011 at 10:00 AM EST

Images: GE

Although this is the first year that GE has showed at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) it sounds like the company made quite the impression at the annual tech-fest that took place in Las Vegas last week.

GE’s focus at CES 2011 was on “smart” home technologies aimed to give attendees of the mammoth trade show an idea of how the company believes the “Connected Home of the Future” will operate. According to GE, the technologies showcased at CES 2011 “will help consumers reduce health- and energy-related costs and redefine the benchmark for household performance.” Cool.

That said, GE’s smart-centric presence at CES wasn’t much of a big surprise given the company has been a big proponent of smart everything (probably much to the dismay of smart meter-fearing residents in West Marin, Calif.) for a while now.

Among the new gizmos and gadgets showcased by GE were a slew of energy-efficient smart appliances, the GE Energy Smart LED, an advanced small wind turbine, and an Yves Behar-designed home electric vehicle charging dock called the GE WattStation.

Receiving the most buzz however seemed to be the GE Nucleus, a home energy monitoring system that uses Brillion Technology to work with smart meters and help homeowners manage electricity consumption (and eventually water, natural gas, and renewable energy consumption after software upgrades). The device, the hub of GE’s ideal “Connected Home,” is about the size of a cell phone charger.

CNET explains how the GE Nucleus works:

With Nucleus, people can see their energy usage in real time through a PC or a smartphone application. Studies have shown people reduce electricity use by about 10 percent with more detailed and regular information. The device, which connects into an Internet broadband router with an Ethernet cable, will be able to store up to three years' worth of energy data; future models will have a removable data storage option.

By communicating with a smart meter, Nucleus will let people program appliances to take advantage of off-peak pricing plans offered by utilities that have time-of-use electricity plans. GE is making a line of networked appliances that can go into energy-saving mode when a utility sends a request to lower usage. The peak-time modes can be manually overridden.

As pointed out by Jaymi over at TreeHugger, GE is testing out these new technologies including the GE Nucleus in Martha’s Vineyard where 35 households are partaking in a 2-year pilot program. See the video below for more info.

Head on over to the GE pressroom to learn more about the technologies unveiled at CES 2011. Additionally, CNET has plenty of GE-related photos from the floor of CES 2011 while both TreeHugger and Jetson Green have published nice roundup posts.

MNN transportation blogger Jim Motavalli was also at CES 2011, reporting on the show's auto aspect and on his experience riding the Las Vegas monorail. As Jim points out in the latter post, CES 2011 shared convention space in Vegas with both the Adult Entertainment Expo and the Miss America Pageant. Forget smart homes and green gizmos and gadgets galore … the thought of the attendees of these three events converging in any way, shape, or form is enough to make my head explode.