Sears made a big play in the connected-home market last year, unveiling connected-home showcases at a number of its retail stores. Now the company is adding connectivity to a number of its own products marketed under its Craftsman, Kenmore, and DieHard brands. These include a new air conditioner, a water softener, a water-heater module, a car/motorcycle battery charger, and the aforementioned mower.
Consumers will see these products appear in select stores and online over the next few weeks and months, with additional ones appearing throughout the rest of the year. Each product will be capable of exchanging information with a smartphone or tablet so you can keep track of maintenance, adjust settings, and in some cases, remotely control the device (an unlikely scenario for the mower).
For now, however, it looks as though each product will be an island unto itself. Sears apparently has no plans to integrate the hardware into any of the connected-home platforms currently on the market.
Craftsman is Sears’ house brand for lawn and garden equipment as well as tools. The company has developed a Craftsman Connect app that can communicate with its Craftsman Zero-Turn Steerable Riding Mowers, enabling the mowers to send maintenance reminders to your smartphone or tablet.
The dual-blade mowers will be available in two deck sizes—a 42-inch model that will sell for $2800, and a 50-inch model that will fetch $3200. Whenever the mowers need an oil change, an air-filter replacement, or if issues arise related to the blades or wheel alignment, it will send an alert to the app. You’ll then be able to schedule maintenance through Sears. If you’re the DIY type, the app will display videos showing you how to perform basic maintenance tasks.
Sears will launch three smart products under its Kenmore brand: a room air conditioner, a water softener, and an add-on module for retrofitting certain Kenmore-brand water heaters.
Sears’ DieHard batteries were on the market years before the movies made Bruce Willis a multi-millionaire, and the company has offered battery chargers under that brand name for almost as long. The $100 DieHard Smart Charger is priced twice as high as its dumb variety, but Sears hopes to entice you with its ability to monitor the process and check the health of your battery on your smartphone or tablet. Automatic voltage detection (6 volts for motorcyles and lawn tractors/12 volts for cars and boats) is another nice feature that could help avoid a potentially dangerous situation.