How a smart sofa works: Son&Bear Smart and voice control

Many families use the sofa most in the evening: for a film, a story before bed, or settling a baby. Those are often the times when your hands are full. A smart sofa is meant for those moments. It is an electric sofa you can also move by speaking to it, so you don't have to find the remote or let go of what you are holding.

Son&Bear, a Singapore furniture brand, offers this as the Smart Sofa option, on selected electric sofas and on both of its nursing chairs. This guide explains what it does, how it differs from a plain electric sofa, who it helps most, and what to ask before you choose it.

What is a smart sofa?

The term is used loosely, sometimes for any sofa with a motor or a charging port. In this guide, a smart sofa means a motorised sofa you can also control by voice.

Son&Bear Smart adds two things to the piece you choose: voice control and a USB charging port. You speak in an ordinary sentence, such as "I want to watch a movie", "I want to sleep" or "I want to get up", and the sofa responds on its electric functions, hands-free. On the Klara, Smart also brings an arm-mounted control panel with a built-in USB port, so your phone can charge beside you.

How is it different from a plain electric sofa?

An electric sofa already moves at a touch. Depending on the version, its motor brings the seat forward into a daybed or a bed, or eases the backrest back as the footrest rises. On the Klara, one wireless six-button remote directs every electric movement.

Smart works on those same electric functions. It changes how you start a movement rather than which movements the sofa makes. If everyone at home is comfortable with a remote, a plain electric sofa does the same work, and Smart is a convenience rather than a need.

On the sofas, Smart comes only with an electric version, so it is not offered on manual or fixed ones. Not every electric version offers it either. The electric Bellingham, Casillas, Devon and Mason do not, and neither do the electric recliners on the Dahlia, the Marcel L-Shape, the Klara L-Shaped Sofa and the Klara Single.

Which Son&Bear pieces offer Smart, and what does it move?

On the sofas, the Smart Sofa option sits in the function step of the configurator on each product page, and it can be added to the electric versions listed above. On the nursing chairs it is a step of its own, the Smart feature, next to the standard chair.

On the Larissa and the Nobi, the standard chair is operated by hand, and Smart adds voice control and a USB charging port. What voice control does on each chair is easiest to understand in the chair itself, so ask the showroom team to show you before you choose. Both chairs are on the nursing chairs page, and every Smart sofa is on the electric sofas page.

Who does voice control help most?

• Parents feeding a baby. During a feed both arms are usually busy, and nobody wants to wake a baby who has just fallen asleep by reaching for a button. Both Son&Bear nursing chairs offer the Smart option, so ask to see what it does on each.
• Older parents and grandparents. Finding a small remote and reading its buttons asks more of stiff hands and tired eyes than saying a sentence.
• Anyone whose hands are full. A cup of tea, a sleeping toddler, the dog settled on your lap.
• Families who share one sofa. Nobody has to search the cushions for the remote before the film can start.

If none of these sounds like your home, a plain electric sofa may be all you need. If you are still deciding between an electric and a manual sofa bed, the guide to choosing an electric or manual extendable sofa covers that choice.

What should you ask before choosing Smart?

Voice control raises practical questions that a motor alone does not. They are worth asking in the showroom, with the piece in front of you.

• Which languages it understands. The sample phrases on Son&Bear's site are in English. If someone at home will speak to it in another language, ask the team to demonstrate in the way you would actually speak.
• Wi-Fi, apps and privacy. Son&Bear's product pages describe Smart as voice control and a USB charging port, and they do not mention an app. If it matters to you whether a device needs Wi-Fi, links to a phone or a home voice assistant, or keeps any recordings, ask before ordering.
• Adding it later. Smart is chosen when you configure the piece, so it is simplest to decide when you order. If you are unsure, ask whether it can be added afterwards.
• Power. Voice control and a USB port both need power, so ask how the piece is powered and where the cable runs, for a nursing chair as much as a sofa.
• Your phone. Son&Bear's site notes that an Apple device with a USB-C port may not charge from the built-in USB port. If you plan to rely on it, try your own phone at the showroom.
• Children and pets. As with any motorised furniture, keep them clear while the sofa or chair is moving, and ask how the model behaves if something is in the way.

What does the warranty cover?

Son&Bear's sofas, recliner sofas, sofa beds and nursing chairs carry a 3-year limited warranty on the frame structure and the movable mechanism, and 1 year on soft furnishings such as foam, fillings and fabric covers. The remote control and the USB charging port count as other components and are covered for 1 year, though an Apple device with a USB-C port that does not charge from it is not treated as a defect. This warranty is in addition to your rights under the Consumer Protection Act 1999. The full terms are on the warranty page.

See it in person

Voice control is easiest to judge in person. Visit Son&Bear in Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur, at 100 Jalan Maarof, open 11am to 8pm every day with parking on site, or in Kuching, at Galacity Prime, Jalan Tun Jugah, open 10am to 7pm every day. Walk in without an appointment and ask the team to show you Smart on a sofa or a nursing chair, using the words you would use at home. To try a particular model, message the showroom before you come to check what is on the floor. Pets are welcome at both.