For several years now, the French home has been evolving. New needs and expectations are emerging, with one mantra: to make everyday life easier. This new philosophy is making its way into French homes, making the connected home the new way of life. In a survey, 63% of French respondents said they had at least one connected device in their home**.
The taste for connectivity has been widely confirmed in recent years, and is increasingly illustrated by a new type of household appliance. Intelligent household appliances are the leading source of sales in the connected home market in France***. It didn’t take long for this appetite for the connected to extend to the wine cellar market, and it should continue to appeal to the French for several years to come, since 26% of French people say they would like to have a connected* household appliance in their home.
What is the purpose of a connected wine cellar?
The question that every wine lover asks is whether there is any real point in buying a connected cellar, and the answer is YES. Keeping an accurate inventory of your wines, whether on paper or on computer, quickly proves complicated when the number of bottles stored increases, bearing in mind that some ageing cellars can store up to 300 bottles. As for finding or knowing which bottle to drink and when, the oenophile is quickly lost. This simple fact has given rise to a new type of cellar: the connected wine cellar.
Its aim is to make it easier to manage your wines, thanks to a precise inventory that can be accessed from your smartphone, so that you finally know what you have and where your bottles are ageing.
For the most demanding customers, some wine cellars even go so far as to identify and detect your bottles, keep a real-time inventory of your wines, alert you to your stocks and peak date or advise you on where to place your bottles.
With all its variations, the connected wine cellar offers wine lovers an intuitive, intelligent management solution that saves you time and promises unforgettable wine-tasting moments.
How do you distinguish between the different types of connectivity?
With this new craze, several types of connected wine cellar are flourishing on the market. To make your choice, you need to learn how to distinguish between them, because connectivity is not the same for all these models. From a simple application to cutting-edge on-board technology, the term ‘connected’ needs to be carefully deciphered:
The “assisted” connected wine cellar
Assisted connected wine cellars” are those connected to a simple wine cellar management application. This “connectivity” replaces traditional paper or computer-based inventories. Based on the same principle, it provides smartphone access to an inventory of your wines. A graphical representation of the cellar is generally available, making it easier to plot and identify the location of bottles. With no additional technology, these cellars offer an easy solution for managing your wines without any real connectivity, since all you need is a digital inventory accessible via a dedicated application. The oenophile has control over his inventory and, above all, responsibility for it, since it has to be updated manually!
What models are on the market? The 136 products from La Sommelière, Climadiff and Avintage that are compatible with the Vinotag® wine cellar management application. Find out more at: https://vinotag-app.com/
The “semi-connected” connected wine cellar
More technical than its sister product, the “semi-connected” wine cellar offers additional functions with remote parameter adjustment. Lighting, temperature and even alarms can be accessed and modified from a dedicated application. This connectivity means that you can consult and access a digital book of your wines, as with assisted connected cellars, but without the benefit of real-time updates, as bottles added to and removed from the cellar are not automatically detected as with an intelligent cellar.
What models are on the market? The Wine Bank 50 Series 7 range from Haier.
The “intelligent” connected wine cellar
Connected in the truest sense of the word, the “intelligent” connected wine cellar benefits from a unique, patented technology that enables it to manage your wines autonomously. The connectivity lies in the cellar, which is equipped with intelligent shelves fitted with sensors. Unlike other types of connected wine cellar, this differentiating technology allows you to keep an accurate inventory of your wines in real time, without the need for any action on the part of the wine cellar owner (i.e. entering bottles added and removed in the application).
It allows you to view a digital register of the contents of your cellar in real time from your smartphone, to instantly locate the exact position of a specific wine, to find places that are still available, or to be alerted to peak dates or the need to restock a wine. The “intelligent” connected cellar knows the exact location of each bottle. With just one click, you can locate a specific bottle of wine, even one that has been stored for several years. A light in the cellar indicates the exact location of the bottle you are looking for.
ESommelier® assisted placement technology even goes so far as to recommend the best location for your wine to ensure it ages well. Based on data and the natural distribution of temperature, it determines the ideal location for your wine to age in the best possible conditions.
A jewel of technology, the ‘intelligent’ connected wine cellar is in a league of its own, and is the only one to truly deserve the label ‘connected’. Autonomy and real-time updates personify this new type of sommelier 2.0.
Only one model on the market: the only smart, connected wine cellar on the market, the ECELLAR185, a French innovation by La Sommelière. On sale at Boulanger, Darty and www.lasommeliere.com
*Survey conducted in May 2018, Several answers were possible. Only the 8 favourite objects were selected. Source: Promotelec / Sociovision.
**Survey by the British group, OnePoll for the well-known German e-commerce company Reichelt Elektronik, on the connected home of the French, a thousand French consumers were questioned about the Internet of Things (OiT).
*** Sales linked to the connected home in France from 2017 to 2022* (in millions of euros). * Estimates. Source: Statista Digital Outlook Market.