That’s no surprise when you consider that the Hoover company basically invented the upright vacuum cleaner – founder William Hoover bought the patent in 1908 from his wife’s cousin, James Spangler, who stayed with the company to continue refining his designs. With all that history it’s hardly a surprise that the brand is inseparably tied to vacuums and floorcare, but what you might not realise is that the company has continued innovating over the century since – and not just on hoovers. Hoover is now a leading white goods brand, and one of the companies driving smart technology forwards in our kitchens and homes. Take this Dynamic Extreme washing machine, which not only boasts a range of washing modes and an A+++ energy rating, but is also packing Wi-Fi features.
Your first thought might be to ask why on earth you’d need your washing machine to connect to the internet, but it actually makes a lot of sense: you can monitor your washes, start the machine or change settings remotely, and even download new wash cycles and modes thanks to Hoover’s Wizard app.
You’ll find similar features in a Hoover smart oven, which incorporates a 19-inch touchscreen right into the door. You can actually use it to watch TV or listen to music while you cook if you link it up to a Bluetooth speaker, but it can also offer up recipe suggestions, give you step-by-step instructions, and programme complex multi-stage recipes with oven settings that change over time.
Best of all, there’s an HD camera integrated right into the oven. Again, that might sound a bit silly at first, but it’s way more useful than you might think: not only does it feed straight through to the screen on the door so that you can check on your food without opening the door, but you can also check the camera from your phone or tablet without heading into the kitchen, and even link it to social media so you can share snaps of your cooking on Instagram as you go. Of course, Hoover wouldn’t be Hoover without hoovers, and the company isn’t done with vacuum cleaners by any means. Vacuums have changed a lot since the company’s first models though, and their latest Discovery cordless vacuums would probably be unrecognisable to the company’s founders.
With no cord, you’re free to take it anywhere about the home, with 35 minutes of battery life to clean your whole home in one go. An LED display keeps you updated on the battery at all time, while the Turbo Boost lets you hit tough spots hard at the touch of a button. The HSpin-Core design is even smart enough to push dust and grime away from the filter, making the chamber as easy as possible to empty without getting your hands dirty. It’s a feature set to rival Dyson’s latest cordless model, at a fraction of the price. That’s just a fraction of Hoover’s current range of course. The company still makes traditional corded vacuum cleaners, along with robot vacuums, microwaves, dishwashers, fridges, freezers, wine coolers… the list goes on. In a funny way, hoovers are now a small part of what Hoover makes, but apparently giving a name to one of the most common appliances in the world isn’t enough for the company. We’re not saying you’re going to start calling your oven a hoover any time soon – that just sounds confusing, frankly – but we wouldn’t be too surprised if your next major appliance has the Hoover logo on the front.
