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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Smart Home

GE Appliances Debuts EcoBalance and Its Vision of the Kitchen as Integral Part of the Home’s Energy Management Network

This week at KBIS, Haier subsidiary GE Appliances focused much of its, um, energy on getting the message out about its new EcoBalance Home System, a new whole-home home systems energy management platform that it has been working on for much of the past decade.

The first announcement about EcoBalance was unveiled about two weeks before the big kitchen and bath show in Vegas, with the announcement of the company’s partnership with Savant. The deal, which brings Savant’s smart home and energy management expertise together with GE Appliance’s kitchen, bath, and other home products (as well as GE’s power management know-how), essentially set the table by previewing the central control interface for consumers.

But, as I saw yesterday at KBIS, news of that deal was only the beginning. It seemed that GE Appliances’s big focus at the show was introducing a flurry of products that tied together the smart home, kitchen, and cooking, as well as other key home activities, into a tighter and more coordinated relationship with both residential and grid power management.

To wit, here are just a few of the products the appliance company showed off this week at KBIS:

A couple of whole-home battery backup and appliance backup systems. The company showed off how its appliances can connect to a Savant home invertor and wall power battery and how the new integration can enable home systems’ power backup by connecting with an EV. GE Appliances has also partnered with Ford, and they were showing off how a Ford F-150 electric can provide backup power to the home through the EcoBalance system.

In addition to home power backup systems, the company also showed off a new battery backup system for refrigerators. Made in partnership with Savant, the fridge battery enables home users to keep their fridge powered and cold during a power outage, which allows users to open the refrigerator to access food without worrying about an out-of-power fridge losing its chill while powered down. According to the GE Appliances Shawn Stover (see our interview below), it will run the fridge for a few hours, and it also features plug-ins to allow owners to charge small electrics like phones.

GE Appliances Shows Off a Refrigerator Battery Backup at KBIS 2024

They also showed off a new GE Profile GeoSpring Smart Hybrid Heat Pump Water Heater, which uses a patented, electronic integrated mixing valve that can provide up to 60% more hot water versus comparable models and allows a 50-gallon tank to operate at the same effective capacity as an 80-gallon tank. The GeoSpring also includes the CTA-2045 Smart Home Solution that makes it demand response ready by communicating with utility companies and responding intelligently to power grid conditions.

A Pyramid Wall Mount Hood with indoor air quality sensing that can sense carbon monoxide and other air pollutants. When connected to the EcoBalance energy management system, the system will send you alerts and can be programmed to turn on the HVAC system when air pollutants are detected.

In addition to its partnership with Savant and GEA’s own line of new home systems that make up the EcoBalance system, the company also talked about its partnership with electric grid connectivity specialist Tantalus Systems. The two companies, along with Savant, announced that they would be integrating the Tantalus’ TRUSense Gateway into the EcoBalance system to enable GE Appliances to connect into grid and enable energy management at the appliance level through, say, running refrigerator defrost or ice cycles during off-peak hours, charging water heaters with energy for use later in the day, and adjusting HVAC systems can be adjusted a few degrees to save energy and reduce peak demand.

According to GE Appliances, the new EcoBalance system will be available across all the brand’s lines, and it will use several go-to-market touchpoints for GE Appliance customers to learn about it. This includes through the system integrator channel with Savant, the homebuilder channel, and retail at big box stores like Best Buy, where prospective customers can learn about the system and be connected to a Savant integrator to discuss potential ways to bring the technology into their homes.

Stepping back, making power management a key focus for its appliance product lineup is both a natural for a company like GE Appliances (which has, through its original parent company in GE, a long history of power system experience) and a timely move in terms of home design and custom awareness. A key focus for the homebuilding and remodeling industry is a move towards smarter energy efficiency, if not outright net-zero building. Tie that into a broader push towards electrification of kitchens and other home systems (and the slow-but-steady deemphasis of gas in homes), and GE Appliances looks to be making an early bid at being an energy-power leader among appliance brands by centering its future kitchen and home systems messaging around this increasingly resonant design focus for consumers.

In the World of Food Tech, The Big Guys Innovate Just Like Everyone Else. Sometimes

Two Stanford grads starting a Fortune 500 computer company in 1939 in their garages is a more than a twice-told tale. Same with a group of Harvard students coming up with a foundation to build Microsoft or Facebook. Less sexy, but equally important, are the innovations that happen at those same giant powerhouse organizations.

During the recent SKS Invent virtual conference, a pair of leaders from two such giants, Electrolux and BSH, spoke about the challenges and rewards that come with sparking innovation at a large, global brand. This post is a look back at my conversation and key insights gleaned from Tove Chevalley, Head of Electrolux Innovation Hub, and Lars Roessler, Head of Corporate Venturing for BSH Startup Kitchen.

What’s it like when a large, established organization pursues innovation? How does it happen? How does it start? Does it just kind of come to somebody in the shower?

Lars: No matter what type of innovation you’re talking about, it’s got to be consumer-centric, has to be customer-driven, customer focused. Suppose you innovate in a space where the consumer is not at the center of your thinking. You can do many things. But it won’t be successful.

Again, it starts with the consumer; we think about how we can improve quality of life, which is our old mantra, but how can we improve the consumer journey across the customer lifecycle? Of course, we are a big corporation and have resources and smart people. But in the end, you need to have the garage mentality is somehow getting inspiration from the outside world.

Tove: I don’t think it’s that different than what it is in the startup community. You know you need a good idea; you need an entrepreneurial spirit; you need to be a bit gutsy and be able to drive that forward.

Ensure you have availability for funding if you have ideas. We know which areas that we are interested in, in driving innovation. So we get to focus on everything that we do, which I think is critical for us when we crack that, that made a huge difference in our innovation funnel

What role does market research play?

Lars: Having market data is super important, but I think we all know typically, market research is kind of like backward-looking. Right? So, we know what happened in the past and what sales have been and what users might be thinking about. But you got to be more forward-looking as well. You could call it foresight management. Also, you can be more experimental, thinking about new needs.

Tove:  We also have a foresight team that helps us look at the biggest opportunity spaces in the future. Because I think that is key. What Lars is mentioning is, as a startup community, you need to look at the market right now as well. But it would help if you looked at other signals that are happening on and going on, you know, economically, politically, consumer, what’s happening around the world. And that gives us signals of where the future growth areas are.

Let’s talk about money. How are your projects and innovation financed? Or do you get kind of a budget? Is it a free flow of cash? Does it come with strings attached? And how do you set up goals and milestones?

Tove: We struggled with this setup because we started funding projects. That had a higher uncertainty. We realized quite quickly, of course, that that kills off ideas very quickly. What we did is we started looking at what the startup world looks like and venture capital. And how can we structure our funding, not only the funding we do with startups, but the funding that we do with their projects, in the same way, and looking at how you move through the funnel, you have different funding rounds. I think it takes a lot of training for leadership and how you look at projects, but also training for people internally and being comfortable in working that way. But that has given us risk mitigation and how we do risk in the company is a lot better.

Lars: When it comes to funding new innovation projects and startup collaborations, we run a very decentralized approach, meaning that money needs to come from business. So, we have had a learning curve on our end and many discussions. For projects, it depends, of course. How far out are you looking with the innovation you want to develop and a new business model you want to develop? But typically, if you don’t have a landing spot, how can you convince anyone within the company to fund, like the first couple of steps of an innovation project? How would you ever be able to convince them to do it by you when you got to be writing the really big checks?

What’s it like to pull the plug on a project?

Lars: No one likes to do it. When people work together, they form some bond. Right? But at some point in time, and that’s, I guess, also the role of units like ours, to be that mediator, buffer in between the startup, the external partner, and the internal innovation team. So I mean, in the end, it’s like a failed relationship, where hopefully, all come to the same conclusion. But in the end, it’s to the benefit of all parties to move

Tove: It’s about killing your darlings, and I think we all have the darlings we work with. I think for us, it’s a lot of building that culture internally and ensuring that we have, you know, mental security coming into these projects because you are working with a lot of uncertainty. And we want people to be comfortable being uncertain. And one of the most important things when you work with uncertainty, is to feel trust in each other and that you trust both the stakeholders that you work towards, but also the team that you work with, and trust that we all have the same goal in this and that we do this together. And I think for us, it’s a muscle that you need to train over and over again to ensure that you have this trust among yourselves, but also trust with your managers. So, we worked a lot on the kind of governance of projects and working with leadership to ensure that they provide that trust to the people who work with us. Also, looking into our, you know, Swedish heritage, we come from a culture where we do work as a team, and we don’t look and celebrate an individual accomplishment; we celebrate team efforts.

You can watch the full season below.

Millo’s New Motorless Blender Features ‘Magnetic Air Drive’

Millo is back.

Founded in 2015, Millo is a food tech appliance company that jumped into the market with an innovative small blender that produced smoothies and other blended concoctions with a quiet motor. As company Adam Trakselis, CEO, told The Spoon that the idea for the initial product came from the fact that the machine he used for his post-exercise blended beverages was so loud it woke his family. “So I would have to wait until everyone wakes up to use the blender.”

The noise issue led Trakselis to look for solutions to an appliance that hasn’t seen much innovation for decades. The first iteration of Millo sold around 1,000 units, but supply-chain issues with semiconductors forced the Lithuanian company to look for a new path. That new path is the Millo Air, the company’s next generation of the product which they just launched on Kickstarter.

Millo Air operates using a magnetic air drive (aka MAD). This axial flux stator generates magnetic fields, which turn a magnetic disc inside the blending lid without any physical connection. Without any turning parts inside the base, it is extremely quiet. In addition, the new model is smaller than the first generation making it even more portable. The drive, however, is more powerful than the original, with a top speed of 15,000 RPM.

According to the company, the first blender version received product innovation awards from IFA Berlin 2019 – the largest consumer electronics show in Europe, and was the SKS Startup Showcase winner in 2019. Moreover, in 2021 Millo received an award from Amazon as one of the top 20 most innovative products launching on its platform.

Trakselis has a vision for using a magnetic air drive far beyond his new blender. As he stated, “Our goal is to innovate the kitchen industry and to reduce electronics waste at its core by producing ten times fewer appliances. We are on a mission to establish magnetic air drive as a new sustainable kitchen standard – a home kitchen needs only one magnetic drive to power all the rotation needed devices.”

For example, a major appliance company can use the Lithuanian invention in a kitchen range. The stove can have a mix of induction burners and a magnetic air drive that can be used to power small appliances. Because of Millo’s successful use of MAD in its new product, other major manufacturers in the kitchen space have been in contact to explore use cases and partnerships. “You have one single cooktop that can have an induction for heating, and we have magnetic coupling fabrication. And if you combine them, you have one solution for all your needs in the kitchen, which is seamless,” he said.

Turning to the new Kickstarter, the company hopes to use some of the lessons learned from its initial campaign in targeting influencers and being more thoughtful about its channels. Five years of experience, the CEO says, has provided the company with some valuable marketing lessons. The campaign to raise £8,817 ($10,038) will last 30 days with the minimum pledge of £152 ($175) to land a Millo Air along with a smart blending lid, an on-the-go cup, drinking lid, charger, and magnetic hook. The Millo Air is expected to retail for $299 after the Kickstarter drive is over.

Are Food Delivery Lockers the Next Must-Have Home Amenity?

Everywhere you look there are delivery lockers. Grocery stores, apartment buildings, office lobbies.

So why not at our home?

If you’re Jeremy High, the idea makes lots of sense. As a luxury home builder in the central California market of Monterey, High works closely with clients spec’ing out features customized around their lifestyles. A recurring ask he hears from his customers is they want a way to ensure that food delivered to their home is safe and kept at the right temperature.

The more he heard this, the more High wondered if a solution existed to help his customers. When he realized there wasn’t, he decided to build it himself.

High’s product, eventually called the Fresh Portal, is a food and package delivery locker built into the side of a home. It has temperature control zones for either hot or cold food and would be accessible both from the outside and inside. It would be managed by an app and integrated with third-party delivery service providers like UberEats or Amazon Fresh so they can access the outside of the locker and insert a delivery.

For High, who first thought of the idea in 2014 and filed for a patent a year later, the product needed to be installable both in new builds and retrofits. To make that possible, he designed the Fresh Portal to use an install concept similar to that of a retrofit window, where the installation process pierced the building envelope, and then the installed product is integrated with the home’s existing waterproofing.

“The design allows us to install this rapidly,” said High. “We can install this and not do any patchwork. No paint comes out. Nothing like that.”

High, who is raising money for his company, plans to have a shippable product by sometime in 2023. He estimates the pricing for the system will be $3,450 installed.

If this all sounds a little first-world problem-ish to you, it is. None of that should be surprising since High’s typical customer has enough wealth to buy a new multimillion-dollar home.

But the luxury home builder turned tech entrepreneur does have a plan to make his food delivery lockers more accessible through subsidization. One such scenario could include a Fresh Portal included as part of a food delivery subscription service. Another is one in which the Fresh Portal earns revenues from third-party delivery service providers.

“DoorDash can deliver to a First Portal versus your porch or knocking on the door and waiting,” said High. “Efficiency and the first time delivery success metric goes up because they’re delivering to a product.”

In exchange, High believes that the delivery companies would pay his company 1% of the sale if it’s delivered to a Fresh Portal. This is all in the idea stage at this point, as High has yet to strike any deals with third-party delivery companies, and I have to wonder if they’d willingly part ways with even a thin slice of their margin.

I think High has time to figure out his subsidization models later, mostly because I see the Fresh Portal as primarily a solution for new homes or remodels for the next few years. I can see the home delivery locker becoming a trendy new homebuilder amenity, where the product’s price is rolled into the monthly mortgage payment.

Longer-term – think a ten-year time horizon – I can see a future where home delivery lockers become commonplace. Like the milk box of a bygone era, only these boxes will be refrigerated, connected to the cloud, and – if you own a Fresh Portal – built into the side of your home.

Amazon Alexa Expands Food Personalization Features With Launch of ‘What to Eat’

Last week, Amazon launched a new personalized meal recommendation feature for Alexa called ‘What to Eat?’. The new capability, which was part of a slate of new features for Alexa first teased at the end of September, gives users recommendations for restaurants, recipes, prepared items, and more based on their preferences.

What to Eat is an expansion of the personalized food recommendation capabilities of Alexa that the company began rolling out earlier this year with the ‘What’s for Dinner’ feature. Where What’s for Dinner offers personalized recipe ideas based on past purchase behavior, What to Eat goes a step further by recommending options based on a user’s dietary preferences and restrictions shared with Alexa.

Once a user asks, “Alexa, what should I eat?” the voice assistant will share recommendations for restaurants, recipes, prepared food, and meal kits. Users can share their preferences and restrictions by telling Alexa to “open my food preferences.” From there, they can choose a primary diet profile from many choices that include vegetarian, paleo, keto, kosher and more. They can also add various dietary preferences such as low-salt, gluten-free, low-carb, egg-free, and more.

I tried out What to Eat on my Echo Show. After asking Alexa, a screen popped up with a Blue Apron meal recommendation at the top and then buttons for restaurants, recipes, and prepared food recommendations.

Once I clicked a level down from each topline option, I got more choices from Alexa. For example, under recipes, I chose a shoppable recipe from Amazon partner SideChef. Once there, I had my choice of step-by-step instructions for the recipe, adding ingredients to a shopping list or directly to my Amazon Fresh cart.

When choosing restaurants, a ‘nearby restaurants’ screen popped up with three options less than a mile from my home. From there, I could filter by delivery, pickup, reservations, or open now.

When I clicked on prepared foods, a screen popped up with Whole Foods chicken tortilla soup as the featured item, as well as the option to filter by Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods, or food type (salad, soup, vegan, etc.).

This evolution of Alexa’s meal personalization capabilities gives Amazon monetization opportunities through a user filling up their e-commerce basket with ingredients via a shoppable recipe, selling prepared foods from Amazon Fresh or Whole Foods, or by gathering a spiff for a restaurant recommendation. While not all of these opportunities are created equal – Amazon obviously gets a bigger share of the spend when customers add a recipe to their Amazon Fresh basket as compared to when a user eats out at a local restaurant – What to Eat entrenches Amazon deeper into the decision-making process of the consumer.

It also shows the uneven playing field for Amazon’s kitchen commerce efforts compared to other voice assistant players. After helping to create the category in 2015, Amazon continues to be the runaway leader in the US smart speaker market share, logging 69% of all installed speakers as of mid-2021. A good chunk of those smart assistants resides in the kitchen where users often will ask for recommendations, add things to a shopping list, and more. All that activity enables Amazon to profile us and, now, make money at every step in the meal journey.

The head of Alexa’s kitchen team, Mara Segal, talks about the new feature and how it allows Amazon to touch the meal journey from end to end in her interview for Amazon Devices’ blog:

“Customers consume roughly 20 meals for the week,” Segal said. “Finding a recipe, getting groceries, picking restaurants, and cooking a meal—it all takes time. We think customers will be excited to break out of their routines and get quick, personalized assistance. With What to Eat and our suite of Alexa Kitchen features, we can make the food journey easier end-to-end—getting that great idea, saving favorites from different food and recipe providers in one place, adding ingredients to the Alexa shopping list or cart, and cooking meal kits or recipes hands-free with Alexa’s assistance.”

Forget Watching TV. Sony Wants Your TV To Watch You (and Monitor Your Eating)

The couch in front of our TV is a sacred no-judgment zone, the place where we wear sweats, eat pizza, and binge-watch Cobra Kai on Netflix.

But what if the TV watched and, well, judged us? That’s the dystopian future Sony is thinking about, at least if US patent number 11,081,227 is any indication.

Called “Monitoring and reporting the health condition of a television user,” the patent describes a television with embedded cameras and sensors that monitor everything a person while slouched on the couch, including tracking the food they eat. The patent was awarded to Sony on August 3rd of this year.

So why is Sony looking to invade the safe space on our couch? According to the patent, the thinking is a TV like this could monitor the health of the TV viewer by recording activities such and eating habits and look for any signs of a potential impending health problem.

Illustration of Remote with Biometric Sensors from Sony Patent #11,081,227

From the patent:

People spend a significant number of hours sitting in front of a television (TV). They may have a hidden health problem or a diminishing health condition. The system monitors one or more health vitals of the user such as heart rate, etc. While sitting in front of the TV, they may behave in an unhealthy manner. For example, they may eat too much while watching a TV program. The system may also monitor the types of food a person eats while watching TV.

The patent describes a system that would use a camera embedded in the TV to log a person’s food consumption and monitor eating patterns such as chewing speed, posture, and how fast they eat. The system would also identify the type of food, estimate portion size, and take a guess at how many calories are consumed. All that info could be synced with biometric monitoring (the patent suggests a heartbeat sensor in the remote) to paint a profile of a person’s health and how their TV watching habits impact it.

So who needs a TV to monitor their food intake? I guess if one consumes lots of empty calories while sitting in front of the tube, this might prod them to change their habits. But on the other hand, do we really need a TV to tell us we’re eating poorly?

And then there’s the problem of consumer privacy. Some of you may remember the controversy a few years back about a few lines in the terms of service or a Samsung smart TV that suggested the company might capture conversations and sell them to third parties. I can only imagine what people might think about cameras on their TV watching their every move.

In Sony’s defense, this isn’t close to being an actual product. Patents are oftentimes just corporate thought experiments, where R&D managers with budgets to burn ask what if? The likelihood of Sony actually building their big brother TV is probably pretty low.

Probably. But maybe someday they will, and if they do, it’ll be interesting to see if consumers are ok with the idea of a TV watching them, trying to make them better people. But hey, if you’re really watching Cobra Kai and downing whole quarts of ice cream every Friday night, maybe you could use the help of your Sony 70″ 4K OLED TV to help perform a little self-care.

GE Profile Debuts Range Oven With Connected Pizza Oven Built In

Last Fourth of July, my neighbor invited me over to show off his new outdoor portable pizza oven. I was both impressed and a little bit envious as he dished up scorching hot, leopard-spotted pies in just minutes.

It wasn’t long before I wondered how I could get my own pizza oven, only without going outside to cook. I could go the Breville counterop route, but I wanted something built-in so I could pretend I was like like our friends over at Modernist Cuisine.

Turns out unless I wanted to spend ten thousand bucks or more, there weren’t any options. Until now. That’s because GE Profile has debuted a new range that has an integrated pizza oven built into the combo appliance for $3,499 called the Trattoria Pizza Oven.

The oven, which features a full pizza oven inside a dual oven range appliance, was the brain child of long-time Louisville-based GE Appliances’ engineer Eric Johnson. Johnson had seen how GE Appliances had created a purpose-built high-temperature pizza oven for its high-end Monogram brand and wondered if a pizza oven could be built into a conventional oven. He created a prototype and showed it to leaders who liked what they saw. As a result, the product was the first to be commercialized through the GE Profile Innovation Studio, which the company launched in February of this year.

While the Monogram pizza oven is a high-tech wonder in itself in with its ability to cook pizza in just a couple minutes without any extra ventilation, Johnson had to work within the confines of what could be done within a more traditional range. While the new pizza oven uses traditional range heating elements (which reaches 550 degrees, compared to the 1300 degrees in the Monogram oven), it has some extra features built in to cook a nice pie including an aluminum alloy cooking surface that heats quickly and maintains temperature, a built-in precision surface temperature sensor to monitor and adjust temperature, and a broil amplifier to distribute heating throughout the cooking chamber.

GE Appliances positions the Profile Innovation studio as a place where new product concepts are launched with an eye towards early adopters. Unlike FirstBuild, which is also located in Louisville, the Profile Innovation Studio seems less about crowdsourced product prototype concepts and more focused on building new appliance concepts for GE Profile that could be commercialized fairly rapidly in fairly small production runs.

You can watch the hero reel intro for in GE Profile’s video below.

GE Profile Trattoria Pizza Oven

Editor note: This article originally had the new product as GE. It has been changed to reflect this new product is from GE Appliances and the company’s Profile brand.

FirstBuild is Making a Smart Mushroom Fruiting Chamber for the Home

One of my wife and I’s inside jokes is the reason we fell in love was our mutual dislike of mushrooms. When we first met, we both thought most forms of fungi that crossed our plates were gross. A few gray hairs (on my head, not hers) and years of marriage later, we can both be adult enough nowadays to eat the occasional mushroom when offered, even if we both would still prefer to hold the mold.

That said, I have come to marvel at the power of fungi in recent years and am all for people (except me) eating more mushrooms, so I was excited when I saw that FirstBuild is working on taking its mushroom fruiting chamber from prototype to product.

You can catch a glimpse of the new Mella Smart Mushroom Fruiting Chamber in action below in the video from FirstBuild.

Introducing Mella: The Smart Mushroom Fruiting Chamber

With sensors for humidity and temperature monitoring, the ability to monitor the mushrooms via a web dashboard and email alerts, closed-loop humidity control with a small refillable water basin, and air filter with duel inlet fans, the appliance has all the bells and whistles to help the aspiring fungiculurist create a high-tech fruiting chamber on their kitchen countertop. Plus it looks cool. The fruiting chamber is surrounded by glass, which lets you check out the your growing fungi.

So why is FirstBuild creating a mushroom growing appliance? The main reason is probably because weird and interesting new appliance concepts are largely the reason the organization exists. FirstBuild, which became somewhat well known with product concepts like its precision cooking Paragon cooktop and Opal ice maker, essentially acts as a product innovation engine for GE Appliances. The group crowdsources new ideas, builds prototypes, and occasionally – like with the Opal – will take the prototypes to full production.

FirstBuild has a microfactory that can do small batch manufacturing, so oftentimes the group will make small one-off manufacturing runs of products like the Forge clear ice system. Other times, the product never gets out of prototype, like it looks like happened with the Arden in-home smoker (bummer) or the Saucemaster 3000.

The move into a grow system for mushrooms isn’t the only sign that FirstBuild has become home-grow curious since earlier this year the company prototyped a smart garden system. It’s also possibly a sign the innovation group is following its parent company’s lead in exploring home grow systems as part of a broader home appliance offering.

If you want to get in on the mushrooom farming fun, stay tuned. FirstBuild says the campaign (which we presume will be on Indieogo) is coming soon.

Loch Electronics Launches Kickstarter Campaign for Its Handy Countertop Dishwasher

Depending on where you live, getting a dishwasher isn’t a given, hence the growing market for tiny dishwashers (like Tetra) that can live on a countertop and are also well-suited to smaller households.

The latest comes from Scottish consumer electronics startup Loch Electronics, which today launched a campaign for its Capsule dishwasher on Kickstarter. The project has already far exceeded its pledged goal of $99,254. As of this writing, more than 650 backers have pledged over $270,000. Which just goes to show you, there are still a lot of folks out there in need of dishwashers. 

Loch bills the Capsule as an “all-in-one solution.” First and foremost, the machine functions as a mini-dishwasher that, according to the company, can wash two meals worth of dishes in 15 minutes. The 22-pound device is meant to fit neatly on the average kitchen countertop and not take up too much space. It has a mode for washing fruits and veggies, and a UV light feature that be used to disinfect non-kitchen items, such as a phone case, keys, or a wallet.

Users can either plumb the Capsule into their kitchen or simply place the device near the sink, where it will drain when the wash cycle is finished. The device is also extremely portable — in theory, you could even take it camping if you really wanted to.

Those that pledge £283 (about $402 USD) will get a Capsule unit with all its accompanying accessories. The price tag is about 33 percent off what Capsule will retail for when it eventually hits the market. Those wanting more than one machine can pledge either £488 ($692) for two or £707 ($1,000) for three.

Capsule is expected to ship in February 2022 to anywhere in the world. 

UK Researchers Kickstart a New Project to Study and Fight At-Home Food Waste Behaviors

The United Kingdom has set up a national research project to study the impact of Covid-19 lockdowns on food waste and develop methods for helping consumers better manage that food waste. Researchers from the University of Leeds have teamed up with two environmental organizations — Zero Waste Scotland and the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) — for the 18-month-long research project.

According to a press release, researchers will examine consumer behavior around food waste both during and after lockdown periods in the UK, and use those findings to develop new ways to help consumers fight food waste and change their behaviors in the home. The project has received £328,000 (~$448,000 USD) in funding, a sum that includes a £268,000 (~$366,000 USD) from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). The project is “part of the UK Research and Innovation’s rapid response to Covid-19.”

Part of the project’s inspiration comes from earlier research by WRAP showing that self-reported levels of food waste in the UK fell by 34 percent during the country’s first Covid-19 lockdown. “While we understand some of this behaviour, we want to broaden our knowledge of why the changes came about, and how we can build on this to help people prevent more food going to waste in future,” Dr Gulbanu Kaptan, one of the individuals leading the new research project, said in a statement.

As is the case in the U.S., the bulk of food waste in Britain happens inside consumers’ own homes. Curbing it will come from a range of different approaches and solutions. Right now, some approaches include smarter storage systems a la Mimica, meal-planning tools like Kitche and Meal Hero, and fridge appliances that can track food inventory more precisely.

All of these methods have varying success rates. University of Leeds’ new project appears to be focused more on the consumer behavior aspect of food waste than on individual tech tools, however. 

For the new project, around 1,500 people across the UK will take part in a survey by relating details of how they choose, store, manage, and cook food. Roughly 30 people will take part in more detailed interviews and will also keep “diaries” of their household food waste.

Here are the Kitchen Robots We Saw at CES & Food Tech Live 2021

One thing I miss most about heading to Vegas every January for CES is walking the basement of the Sands convention center. There, in the startup area known as Eureka Park, I’ll wander for hours and get lost amongst thousands of exhibitors in search of a few undiscovered food tech gems.

I usually find a few and, since we’re talking CES, they sometimes come in the form of a food robot.

From there, I usually head across the street to Treasure Island where The Spoon has its own product showcase during CES week called Food Tech Live, where I can also get my fill of food robots while also doing such things as eating a cookie with my face on it.

While both CES and Food Tech Live didn’t take place in person in Sin City this year, that doesn’t mean there weren’t some cool food robots to check out at their virtual versions last week. Below is our roundup of home food robots I found at virtual CES and The Spoon’s annual first-of-the-year product showcase, Food Tech Live.

Moley Robotic Kitchen

Since 2015, the Moley robotic kitchen has captured the imagination of the tech journalists and robotics industry with its robot chef concept that can that can prepare full meals from prep to cook to clean up with a pair of articulating robot arms.

And while we’ve yet to actually see the Moley cook a full meal from start to finish, the system’s inventor told The Spoon that it’s finally on sale and will find its first home in 2021. The company, which had a virtual booth at CES 2021 and debuted a bunch of new highlight videos, will sell both a home and pro version of its robotic kitchen. Prices for the fully robotic kitchen will be about $335 thousand.

The Moley Robotic Kitchen System at CES 2021

Oliver

Else Labs Oliver is a single-pot cooking robot that dispenses fresh ingredients and automates the cooking process with the help of temperature sensing and machine vision capabilities.

Else Labs, which went on sale via Indiegogo last fall, was on display at Food Tech Live last week. The product’s inventor and company CEO Khalid Aboujassoum says the major difference between Oliver and other guided cooking appliances on the market is Oliver pretty much handles the entire cooking process for you.

“The Oliver can do unattended stovetop cooking,” Aboujassoum told me last fall when the product went on sale.

Oliver, the smart cooking robot

iWonderCook

The iWonderCook is a automated cooking machine that cooks one-pot meals. The meals are provided in the form of the company’s own meal kit service, which the user orders through the device’s touchscreen. From there, as can be seen in the video below, the user inserts a bowl, embeds the food “cartridge”, and then adjusts the amount of oil and water needed.

I haven’t gotten a chance to see the iWondercook in action or taste the food, I will say is the product’s reliance on its own meal kits might be a turn-off for some users.

iWONDERCOOK robotic chef does the cooking for you.

Yo-Kai Express Takumi

Technically the new Yo-Kai Express Takumi home ramen machine is something closer to a Keurig for food than a food robot, it’s worth looking at this machine given the company’s smart vending roots.

The Takumi, which debuted at Food Tech Live last week, follows Yo-Kai’s move into the home market with its home delivery service. The Takumi takes the frozen ramen bowls, which are centrally produced in Yo-Kai’s California facilities, and steams and reconstitutes the ramen in just a few minutes.

The company has plans to not only to start selling ramen to users in the office and home, but on the go with an autonomous ramen delivery cart.

Day With Yo Kai Final

Samsung Bot Handy

Samsung announced a trio of home robots aimed at helping humans around the house. The one that was most interesting when it comes to lending a hand in the kitchen was Bot Handy, a mobile bot with large articulating hand that can help with anything from pouring a glass of wine to doing the dishes.

It’s worth noting that Samsung – like many big consumer electronics brands – has a history of showing off cool new product prototypes at CES that are more conceptual than anything close to actually coming to market, including last year’s they showed off a Moley-kitchen style robot system. Let’s hope the Bot Handy is something the company delivers on.

Julia

The Julia is another single-pot home cooking robot that allows the user to set it and forget it for pretty much an entire meal. The Julia is made by a Nymble, an Indian-based startup with plans to start selling the product in 2021. Nymble CEO Raghav Gupta showed off the product at Food Tech Live, told us that they are expanding their alpha trial program in the United States in February.

ColdSnap

Like the Takumi, the ColdSnap isn’t quite a full-fledged food robot, but something closer to a Bartesian style automated appliance that makes cold ice cream (as well as frozen margaritas and smoothies). While we weren’t able to get our hands on the ColdSnap, the company gave CNET a hands-on preview of the appliance and the editors were impressed. The appliance, which is going to a fairly spending $500-1,000, reminds me of the Wim fro-yo appliance that never made it to market after an acqui-hire of the founding by Walmart.

CES 2021: Samsung’s SmartThings App Adding Shoppable Recipe and Guided Cooking

Samsung announced today that it will be adding shoppable recipes, guided cooking and more such functionality to its SmartThings Cooking mobile app.

The added functionality is powered by Whisk’s Food AI (Samsung NEXT acquired Whisk in March of 2019), some of which has been available as part of the Family Hub software found in Samsung appliances.

With today’s news, smartphone users with the SmartThings Cooking app will be able to:

  • Get personalized recipe recommendations based on taste, preferences as well as what is immediately available.
  • Shop for ingredients and other food through the Whisk network of retailers including Walmart, Kroger, Instacart and Amazon Fresh.
  • Guided cooking instructions along with automatic temperature controls sent out to synced Samsung cooking appliances.

This could be the year where shoppable recipes and appliance integration take off. We are coming off a record year of online grocery shopping, thanks to the pandemic, so more people than ever are accustomed to buying groceries, including perishables, online. So the logical next step is tying together all of the threads in the meal journey: discovery, selection, access and instruction.

Samsung’s integrating functionality does all that and extends it now to the mobile phone. Of course, taking advantage of all of these new features means that you have to buy into the Samsung ecosystem and get all your appliances from the same maker.

As CES is kicking off this week, there will be a slew of kitchen appliance related announcements. Given how much online grocery shopping took off last year, and its projected growth over the coming years, I wonder how much more shopping integration we’ll see.