Reliability, Quality, Performance within Home & Small Appliances (English)

Tyler Kern (00:01): 

Welcome to Connected World, a podcast created for engineers to learn about the latest technology trends, creating a safer, sustainable, productive, and connected future. 

Tyler Kern (00:16): 

Hello and welcome to Connected World of podcast from the experts at TE Connectivity. I'm Tyler Kern, and we are thrilled to have you along for this episode of the show everyone. Today, we're diving into the world of home and small appliances with our subject matter expert Amy Smith. She's a Business Development Manager for the Americas at TE Connectivity. Amy, thank you so much for being here, welcome to the show. 

Amy Smith (00:36): 

Thank you. Happy to be here. 

Tyler Kern (00:37): 

Well, Amy, I'm excited to dive into this with you because this is obviously an area where there are so many innovations, there are so many things happening right now, but let's start off talking about some of the trends. What are some of the trends you're seeing in small home appliance market right now? And tell me a little bit more about just the direction you see things moving in and what's happening. 

Amy Smith (00:55): 

Yeah, there's a lot of trends happening right now, but the biggest trend we see in the small home appliance market right now is the demand for increased features and functions. These features and functions are being really driven by the consumers and it's really coming from the need for this user experience to be a priority. The trend for new features and functions is seen in a lot of areas like wanting enhanced charging capabilities, ease of interacting with the user interface, increased sensing capabilities, better power supply, and a lot more. We're also seeing this market shift towards the need for smaller and more portable devices. 

Amy Smith (01:35): 

Both of these trends, the added features and functions and the need for smaller, more portable devices are making selecting components more challenging because you're working within a smaller space constraint. The components are becoming more critical to the overall function and design of the small appliances. 

Tyler Kern (01:52): 

You hit some great points there and my follow-up question was going to be, what are consumers looking for these days? And how is that driving the trends and innovations you're seeing? You kind of spoke to that a little bit but specifically how have consumer behaviors maybe evolved over the last year, maybe a little bit longer so that you're seeing some of these trends and seeing some of these things develop within this market? 

Amy Smith (02:14): 

Yeah, so the trends we're seeing, like I said, in the market are really being driven by the consumers. For example, consumers want a unique user experience. And this usually means that small appliance manufacturers need to add these features and functions to their products and create a differentiation of their product in the market while still keeping reliability and quality at the top of mind. Consumers are really driving the demand of these added features and functions. For example, if you look at robotic vacuums it's a new technology a few years ago, but once it was more widely adopted into the market, the consumer has started to drive the expectations and really accelerated the demands of the user experience they wanted for robotic vacuums. For example, there's become an increased want for increased battery life of your robotic vacuum. Consumers want their vacuums to stay charged longer, so it can vacuum the whole house without needing to be recharged. 

Amy Smith (03:14): 

The same idea can be seen in other smart home appliances. And as consumers demand more functions, it can leave design engineers with a lot of unique challenges of adding these additional component requirements and still having a small space constraint that they had before or even smaller. So consumers want a reliable and lasting product, so the added components needed for these additional features need to work with the whole system to enable these features, but not compromise reliability. So the consumers are really going to continue to drive these demands, it's going to be a continued need for increased features and functions. These features and functions are going to change over the years, but they're going to be the ones that are driving this acceleration. 

Tyler Kern (04:04): 

That's a great point that people want these functions, they want that personalization that they can create, and they want it all in the same size package. And things aren't getting bigger these days, things are getting smaller and more compact. If you look at a different example of say cell phones, people want better cameras but thinner phones and so there's a challenge there. It's much the same in the home appliance market. People want these functions in these features, but they want it all to be the same size. You outlined the challenge for engineers there really well, just that they're now presented with this idea of we have to fit more into the same amount of space, right? 

Amy Smith (04:43): 

Yeah. For sure. The trend of these more features and functions and the movement towards the smaller and more portable devices, it's created a lot of challenges for the design engineers because they have to solve, how are they going to get these features and functions into their applications? So challenges from these trends can be things like what functions to prioritize, how to design in all the components that are going to be required to make these functions work and how to find into smaller components without compromising the reliability and the performance of, of the components. 

Amy Smith (05:21): 

This has created several pain points for those designing in this market. One of the major pain points we hear often from our customers is the need for a miniaturization of components. Because due to the additional features, there's been a big challenge on size constraints within these devices. They're working with either the same size PCB boards or smaller. There's a higher level of components needed within these applications now. With any design change and challenges our customers still have the need or even an increased need for robustness and quality while also recognizing that the products have to stay affordable for the market and fit within what they're looking for. 

Tyler Kern (06:03): 

That's a really great point, fitting more into a same amount of space, miniaturizing components, all very, very good points and all very crucial to achieving success in these areas. So Amy, tell me a little bit more about how TE can help engineers overcome these challenges and how you can work together to help solve the problem, solve the issues and help things move forward. 

Amy Smith (06:24): 

These challenges really make it important to select the right components early in the design process, and to be able to prioritize what components are critical and being used to support all the functions of the system and of the application. We hear it often from design engineers that they need help designing for energy efficiency, cost effectiveness, the portability of devices and other connected features that are being driven by these consumer demands. And they really value having TE who is the connector expert, help them design for these challenges. TE's broad portfolio of connectors has helped customers in the small appliance space in a variety of ways through helping with increased reliability, withstanding harsher environments, working within these tighter space constraints and providing the global technical support throughout their whole design and production process. We're able to be a partner for our customers from design through production, and really reduce that uncertainty of designing correctly for the needs and the wants of the consumers in the market. 

Amy Smith (07:30): 

By partnering with TE, we can help engineers identify exactly what parts and components would work best for the features they desire. So they can better utilize their time instead of just searching online and through catalogs, hoping to select the right part. A component supplier like TE, we can help identify the exact part that works best for their design. We've helped a lot of customers avoid over-engineering they're designed, help them simplify their design process and design for the efficiency and reliability they need. We're able to give our partners insight into specific products or integrated solution that may free up available space, improve performance and reliability, and really enhance the overall design. 

Tyler Kern (08:19): 

So it sounds like TE really takes a consultative approach where you're working together with your partners to find solutions. And it's not just a one and done kind of thing, but it's really a partnership and it's really working together to find the best possible outcomes? 

Amy Smith (08:34): 

Yeah. That's a hundred percent correct. We really value our partnerships with our customers and we want to make each experience that give and take partnership where we can help while hearing out the goals and the challenges that our customers are experiencing and helping to create the best design for what they're looking to do. It's really important to select the right components early in the design process, because with the added features and functions in these new designs, even the simplest of connectors need to perform optimally with the electronics and the applications. It's important to partner with a connector supplier like TE who can help select the correct parts and to learn more about the type of connectors that can enable these features and functions instead of prohibiting the design. 

Amy Smith (09:22): 

So by involving TE early and often in the design process, we can help our customers select the optimal part for not only the feature they're designing for at that exact moment, but really for the entire design architecture of their system. 

Tyler Kern (09:37): 

You know, you said something really interesting there that I wanted to touch on, and that was involving TE early and often, when is the best time to get TE involved in to have these types of conversations in the design process and that sort of thing? Kind of talk me through when people should get it to TE involved. 

Amy Smith (09:54): 

The earlier the better to get your component supplier, to get TE involved, is best. Really from the moment what features and functions you want to have added to your design, if we can be involved that can really take away a lot of the challenges that come down the line of trying to fit the components that are needed into an already set design. If we can be involved from the beginning phase of when you know what feature you want to add, we can help simplify that design process, select the correct components and really make the design challenges non-existent as they move forward through their design. 

Tyler Kern (10:34): 

What tends to be the issue maybe if TE gets involved later on in the process? Can there be issues that pop up relating to connectors and things like that if you wait a little bit too long to bring expertise like what TE provides into the process? 

Amy Smith (10:53): 

Yeah. Then it can become the challenge of you're trying to fit a square peg into a round hole type of situation, where you're going to have to be finding components that fit right into what you're working with, as opposed to finding something that really enhances your design and really solves what you're trying to do. You're going to be left with a limited number of components that are going to work for what you're trying to do, which could mean it's more expensive, or it doesn't do exactly what you're wanting, or it doesn't fit into the space that you have. By getting TE involved early we can make sure we're making the best selection for you. And like I said earlier, even the simplest of connectors that previously used to maybe be able to be designed in later, they really are a critical part of the overall performance of the electronic device now. And they need to be involved in that design process from the beginning. 

Tyler Kern (11:57): 

That's some fantastic insight and I think fantastic advice for people as they move forward on projects like this and as they look at the different challenges that we outlined earlier. I think just knowing that the earlier that TE's involved, the better I think is absolutely crucial. So Amy, as we start to wrap up our conversation today, is there anything else that you want people to know or any summary statements you'd like to make just about the small home appliance market in general and different things that go along with it? Anything else you'd like to share with us before we wrap up this episode? 

Amy Smith (12:28): 

Yeah. I think just as a small appliance market continues to evolve and more technologies are introduced into this market, it's likely that the consumer driven trends and the timelines for these new products are going to continue to accelerate. There's definitely going to continue to be a need for more components within this tighter space constraint and the demand for this miniaturization of these components is going to continue to be a priority. TE really values creating this partnership with our customers, so we can work together to advance your designs and overcome the challenges you're experiencing so we can meet your needs. The team at TE can help support the small appliance market and involving TE as the connector expert early in the design process and developing this partnership can help small appliance manufacturers really enhance their design and create that reliable and efficient product that we talked about. 

Tyler Kern (13:23): 

Some fantastic insight from Amy Smith, from TE Connectivity here on the podcast. Amy, thank you so much for joining me today here on Connected World and sharing a little bit more about the small home appliance market and the trends that you're seeing, the consumer desires that are driving a lot of these trends and how TE can really step in and help overcome these challenges. I really appreciate your insight and I appreciate you joining me here on the podcast today. 

Amy Smith (13:46): 

Thanks for having me. It's been great. 

Tyler Kern (13:48): 

And everyone thank you for joining us here for this episode of Connected World. Remember there are a lot of episodes of the podcast out there, so for more insights for more thought leadership from the folks at TE Connectivity, make sure to go back and check out some of those previous episodes of the podcast. We cover a lot of different industry and a lot of different expertise is here on the show. So make sure and go back and listen to those as well as subscribe, to stay up to date with the latest insights from TE, we're going to be back soon with new episodes. You can subscribe on Apple podcasts or Spotify. And like I mentioned, we're going to be back soon with new episodes so make sure that you're subscribed to stay up to date with the latest. But until then, I've been your host today, Tyler Kern, thanks so much for listening.