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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Connected Kitchen

FirstBuild’s Latest Funky Kitchen Gadget is a Device Which Feeds & Manages Your Sourdough Starter

In a world where many kitchen appliance brands have downsized or eliminated their innovation arms, FirstBuild, the device innovation and incubation for GE Appliances, is generating (and building) more ideas than ever.

The group, which celebrated its 10th anniversary last year, has developed 104 products and features, with 37 making their way into the GE Appliances portfolio. Along the way, it has raised over $5.2 million through crowdfunding and built a community of 245,000 builders who submit ideas, vote on projects, and occasionally back them financially.

Unlike traditional corporate R&D departments, FirstBuild invites its community of makers, engineers, and consumers to contribute ideas and test prototypes in its 35,000-square-foot makerspace at the University of Louisville. This approach has led to some viral hits, including the Opal Nugget Ice Maker, which launched on Indiegogo and raised $2.8 million before a prototype was even completed. FirstBuild was also the birthplace of the Arden indoor smoker, a CES 2024 hit that is rapidly gaining a fanbase in the grilling community.

Sourdough Sidekick - Design Reveal (UPDATE)

FirstBuild’s latest project is designed for home bakers who love sourdough but don’t want the hassle of maintaining a starter. Currently in prototype stage, the Sourdough Sidekick automates the feeding process, ensuring the starter stays healthy and ready without the daily commitment. While traditional methods require constant attention, FirstBuild claims the Sidekick can sustain a starter for up to seven days, adapting to the home baker’s schedule. The device features a built-in flour hopper, water tank, and a smart dispensing system that measures and delivers the right amounts to keep the starter thriving. It will also monitor ambient kitchen conditions, making adjustments as needed to optimize fermentation.

Of course, FirstBuild’s Sidekick isn’t the first smart sourdough manager on the market. Fred Benenson, former head of data for Kickstarter, created Breadwinner during the pandemic, a smart sourdough monitoring device that tracks a starter’s growth and notifies bakers when it reaches peak activity, ensuring optimal baking times. Priced at $50, Breadwinner features real-time monitoring and smart notifications, allowing bakers to receive alerts via email, pop-ups, or SMS.

The Sidekick, in contrast, is more of a full-fledged automated feeder and management appliance, offering a more hands-off approach. Given its more advanced functionality, it’s likely to come at a significantly higher price than Breadwinner’s affordable $50 price tag.

While the sourdough craze of the pandemic has certainly cooled, my guess is there are still far more home bakers today than there were five years ago and there’s a good chance rising food prices may even spark a new wave of would-be bread bakers looking to make fresh loaves at home. If that’s the case, FirstBuild’s Sourdough Sidekick could arrive at just the right time to offer enthusiasts an easy way to feed both their baking obsession and their hungry starters.

Tomorrow Wants To Reinvent The Refrigerator to Make Fresh Food Last Longer

If there’s one appliance category in the kitchen that’s stayed stuck in time, it’s the refrigerator. Sure, cool new features like see-through doors and touchscreens have been added to some models, but in reality, the fridge has largely remained the same for most of the past century: a big, cold box where we put food inside and hope we remember to eat it.

A new Seattle-based startup called Tomorrow hopes to change that with their eponymous new refrigerator, the Tomorrow Fridge.

So how is the Tomorrow Fridge different? The company is keeping most details under wraps for now, but according to CEO Andrew Kinzer, the main difference is in how the Tomorrow Fridge treats fresh produce. Kinzer says the typical modern refrigerator is built to extend the life of produce through dehumidification, or the drying out of air to slow spoilage.

“What most people don’t know is that that stuff’s actually alive,” Kinzer told The Spoon. “It’s got metabolism, it’s breathing, it’s generating heat and carbon dioxide.”

In fact, pretty much all modern refrigerators function like dehumidifiers, drying out fruits and vegetables. While this helps eliminate mold, it also leads to more rapid spoilage.

“Anytime you see carrots that get really bendy, broccoli that gets kind of floppy, or lettuce that looks sad, that’s water loss,” Kinzer explained.

Kinzer says the Tomorrow Fridge will be able to adjust the environment in different storage spaces within the fridge to better preserve fresh produce.

While Kinzer and Tomorrow aren’t sharing specific details about their cooling system, he did reveal that they’ve filed for a patent and plan to release more information as they approach the fridge’s 2025 delivery date.

Another big feature of the Tomorrow Fridge is its ability to track what’s inside. Kinzer says the fridge will have overhead cameras to monitor inventory and help households plan meals. By leveraging AI-based large language models, the fridge can suggest recipes or notify users of what’s running low. This feature will be accessible through the Tomorrow Fridge app.

Unfortunately, we don’t yet have a clear picture of what the fridge will look like, feature specifics (such as whether it will include a freezer), or pricing. The company is keeping most details secret for now. One feature it won’t include, according to Kinzer, is gas-detecting sensors like those hinted at in Amazon’s patent or found in products like BlakBear food storage containers.

No matter what features the Tomorrow Fridge ultimately offers, we’ll be keeping an eye out. Readers of The Spoon know I’ve often bemoaned the lack of innovation in refrigerators. Sure, there are occasional new takes, like Samsung’s Family Hub or futuristic patents, but for the most part, fridges remain big, cold, air-drying boxes where a large percentage of our food goes bad.

Let’s hope the Tomorrow Fridge delivers on finally bringing some fresh ideas to the fridge.

With Second Gen Lineup, Combustion Adds Wi-Fi to Product Mix and Ups Thermometer Temp to 900°F

Earlier this month, kitchen startup Combustion announced several upgrades to its product lineup, including a second-generation precision thermometer that can withstand temperatures up to 900°F and a new connected display that, for the first time, incorporates Wi-Fi into the Combustion product mix.

In addition to the thermometer and display updates, the company introduced a new wireless fan called the Combustion Engine. This device pairs with Combustion’s thermometer or the recently announced Grill Gauge to help control temperatures on outdoor grills.

I caught up with Combustion CEO Chris Young last week to discuss the new updates. He told me that the number one feature request from customers has been Wi-Fi connectivity.

“The thing about Wi-Fi is that consumers want it because, once you’re connected, you can keep an eye on things while you’re away,” Young told The Spoon.

Young, who previously worked on integrating Wi-Fi into the ChefSteps (now Breville) Joule, understands the significant complexity that Wi-Fi adds from a product management standpoint. This complexity is why Combustion took its time incorporating Wi-Fi into a product lineup that, until now, had relied solely on Bluetooth.

“Everybody inside the company who’s worked on this has experience doing it at scale and carries some scars from those efforts,” said Young. “There’s a right way and a wrong way to do it, so we took our time.”

That deliberate approach involved deciding where to include Wi-Fi—ultimately in the charging sleeve and display—and where not to include it, such as in the thermometer itself. The company also worked on managing battery life and ensuring efficient data transmission from the Wi-Fi chip.

Another major upgrade is the thermometer’s ability to withstand and measure temperatures up to 900°F, higher than most conventional consumer ovens can reach. Young explained the significant technical challenges involved in designing a device capable of performing at such high temperatures.

“You’re getting into exotic circuit board materials. Oxygen does crazy things at 900 degrees and starts to attack copper. So behind the scenes, it was a massive production process improvement that should result in higher reliability, better high-temperature performance, and what is essentially the most extreme submersible thermometer you could imagine.”

Early responses to the upgrades have been positive on the Combustion Reddit forum, where Young is active in answering user questions. The company expects to ship the new thermometer next month and the Combustion Engine in the spring of 2025. For those looking for a deal, the company is clearing out its Gen-1 thermometers (I have one, and it works well) ahead of Thanksgiving.

New Lawsuit Accuses Private Equity Company of Plundering Assets of Instant Brands

The long, convoluted, and increasingly dark tale of the acquisition of Instant Brands (the maker of the Instant Pot) by Cornell Capital took another turn last week with the filing of a complaint on behalf of the company’s creditors to recoup up to $400 million in losses. The filing alleges that Cornell Capital LLC and its leadership orchestrated a series of fraudulent maneuvers that ultimately led to the downfall of the once-popular Instant Pot maker.

The story begins in May 2017, when Cornell Capital, a private equity firm founded by Henry Cornell, acquired World Kitchen, later renamed Corelle Brands. Seeking further growth through acquisition, Cornell Capital used Corelle Brands to acquire Instant Brands in March 2019 for $615 million.

However, the complaint states that shortly after the acquisition, Cornell Capital discovered that Instant Brands’ financial records had been misstated, particularly the 2018 EBITDA—a crucial metric for business valuation. A “shit show” is how Ken Wilkes, then CEO of Corelle Brands, described Instant Brands’ financials. This discovery meant Cornell Capital had significantly overpaid for Instant Brands.

In the wake of this revelation, Cornell Capital threatened legal action against Instant Brands’ sellers (Robert Wang, the inventor of the Instant Pot, and his co-founders Yi Qin and Dongjun Wang) for fraud. Wang, Qin, and Wang negotiated a restructuring agreement in February 2020, which significantly reduced the purchase price in exchange for releasing them from liability.

In a move that would later become central to the lawsuit, Cornell Capital secured for itself the sole entitlement to a future $200 million dividend from Instant Brands. Additionally, Corelle Brands filed a $268 million claim with its representations and warranties insurer in May 2020, alleging that the misstated financials had inflated the acquisition price.

According to the complaint, Cornell Capital pushed forward with its plan to extract a dividend from the company despite knowing about Instant Brands’ overstated valuation and declining financial performance. In March 2021, Instant Brands approached lenders to secure financing for a dividend recapitalization, all the while concealing the truth about its financial woes. The complaint states that Cornell Capital and Instant Brands withheld information about the misstated financials, the purchase price reduction, and the ongoing insurance claim. Adding another layer of concern, they also failed to disclose an investigation by the Consumer Product Safety Commission into potential safety hazards with the Instant Pot—a revelation that could have deterred potential lenders.

Through this withholding of information, the complaint alleges that Cornell Capital successfully secured a $450 million term loan in April 2021. This loan, along with $100 million of Instant Brands’ cash reserves, was allegedly used to fund a $345 million dividend, the vast majority of which went to Cornell Capital, its co-investors, and Instant Brands’ sellers, leaving the company insolvent.

As Instant Brands’ financial situation deteriorated, Cornell Capital engaged in what the lawsuit describes as a desperate attempt to salvage its investment. In January 2023, less than two years after the dividend payout, Cornell Capital orchestrated the transfer of almost all of Instant Brands’ tangible assets—estimated to be worth $200 million—to newly formed unrestricted subsidiaries. These assets were then used as collateral for a $55 million loan from Cornell Capital Partners LP. This maneuver, termed the “UnSub Transaction,” was allegedly designed to strip Instant Brands of its remaining valuable assets and shield the earlier dividend payout from scrutiny under bankruptcy laws. However, the UnSub Transaction only served to worsen Instant Brands’ financial standing and ultimately failed to prevent its bankruptcy filing in June 2023.

Needless to say, the complaint paints a damning picture of Cornell Capital’s actions, accusing the firm and its leadership of orchestrating a scheme to enrich themselves at the expense of Instant Brands’ creditors. The complaint seeks a comprehensive accounting of the financial maneuvers undertaken by Cornell Capital, requesting that the court void the $345 million dividend and other payments made to the defendants. Additionally, the trustee is asking for the recovery of the value of those transfers and is seeking an award of no less than $400 million to compensate for the losses incurred by Instant Brands’ creditors.

Luckily for everyday consumers, most of this news will never reach them, and Instant Pots still appear to be making their way to store shelves. However, the heyday of Instant Pot as the hottest kitchen device is long gone, and Instant Brands no longer churns out new product variations every six to nine months. While we may never know why Instant Brands’ founders misstated the financials to facilitate the sale, it’s possible they were trying to strike while the iron—or Instant Pot—was hot, given the influx of Instant Pot clones flooding the market at the time.

Anova Serves Up a Generous Helping of AI With Launch of Anova Precision Oven 2.0

Last week, Anova announced the second generation of its Precision Oven, just over four years after it began to ship the first generation Precision Oven. The Anova Precision Oven 2.0 is packed with a number of new features, including an in-oven camera and Anova Intelligence, a suite of new AI features designed to power new ways for users to assist in the cooking process.

In fact, the company listed a bunch of features currently offered by their AI-powered cooking and a number of features that they are working on. The features the Anova Precision Oven 2.0 currently has include:

  • Ingredient Recognition: The AI system automatically identifies what’s inside the oven with the internal camera.
  • Suggested Cooking Methods: The oven’s AI will suggest cooking methods tailored to the ingredients, ranging from basic roasting to more complex sous vide style.
  • Packaged Food Conversion: The oven will scan the packaging, and the AI will choose the right settings.
  • Recipe Conversion: The company says the Anova Precision Oven 2.0’s AI can convert nearly any recipe to make it work with its settings, with the caveat that this feature will improve over time as it gains more data.

According to Anova, upcoming features for Anova Intelligence include:

  • Assistant Mode: Anova’s AI-powered co-pilot will simplify complex cooking techniques and offer personalized cooking guidance.
  • Complex Meal Creation: When preparing multi-component dishes, the oven will suggest optimal settings for each ingredient, “streamlining” the cooking process for recipes that typically require juggling multiple cooking techniques.
  • Cook Recall: The oven will recognize repeat recipes for dishes you prepare frequently and return to your last-used settings.
  • Doneness Detection: Powered by the internal camera, the oven monitors the cook’s desired crispness level and alerts them when it reaches the preferred doneness level.
  • Auto Shutdown: The oven will detect when a cook cycle has finished and whether food has been removed, then notify you before automatically shutting off.
  • “Clean Me” Reminders: Equipped with an internal camera that monitors for dirt buildup, the oven will remind you when it’s time for a cleaning.

With the addition of the camera and new AI features, it looks like Anova hopes to fill the void left after Weber sunsetted the June oven about a year ago. While some features (like auto-shutdown) don’t seem all that interesting, I am intrigued by features like the coming co-pilot mode.

In addition to the new AI features, the second-gen oven includes even tighter temperature management (powered by three internal temperature sensors and a more powerful on-board processor) and better steam management. The new oven also includes a new app and an additional recipe subscription service for $1.99 a month or $9.99 annually.

All of these new features come with a hefty price tag increase at $1199, double that of the launch price of the first-gen oven. While some may pass on the 2.0 due to the price increase, given the void left by June and the cult following Anova has, I expect the new Anova oven to sell fairly well when it ships.

A First Look at Roku Shoku, Sony’s Culinary Recording System to Capture and Replicate Chefs’ Recipes

This past week in Japan, Sony unveiled a project they’ve been developing in secret called Roku Shoku, a culinary recording system designed to capture exactly how a chef prepares a meal. The system also serves as a guidance tool, helping casual or inexperienced cooks create dishes with the precision of an expert with years of training.

Sony has been working on this project, which stands for “Record” (Roku) and “Cooking” (Shoku), for the past five years. Last week, the entertainment and consumer electronics giant held the first-ever press demonstration of the recording studio for The Spoon team.

“We have a recording studio here in Tokyo,” said Tomoko Nomoto, Project Leader for Roku Shoku. “We invite Michelin-starred chefs, or even grandmothers, to the studio and ask them to cook with our system. We then record their culinary data, including temperature, steam levels, and the entire cooking process.”

The project is led by a Sony R&D team out of Tokyo and is separate from research in the area of gastronomy that has taken place at Sony’s AI Research division Sony AI (the formal Gastronomy program announced in 2020 has been sunsetted, but Sony continues to work on gastronomy-related projects). Since launching the Tokyo recording studio in 2021, the team has captured thousands of recipes across a range of cuisines, including Japanese, Chinese, French, Italian, and Thai.

The Roku Shoku system features induction cooktops with temperature sensors, scales to monitor and weigh ingredients, cameras to capture a chef’s movements, and an off-the-shelf game controller made by Steam to control the setup.

Nomoto shared that users can replicate meals precisely as chefs cook them, a claim I tested myself. You can watch me trying it in the video below.

First Ever Look at Sony's Roku Shoku Culinary Recording System

According to Nomoto, the goal is to use Roku Shoku both to document recipes for restaurants and food service locations and to preserve culinary creations for future use.

“The first step will be to work with restaurants that want to share a consistent experience worldwide or recreate dishes that are no longer available, like when a chef passes away or retires,” said Nomoto.

Spoon readers might recall Cloudchef, another system that records chef creations. Nomoto explained a key difference: Sony plans for Roku Shoku to enable only human chefs to recreate these meals, while Cloudchef eventually aims to use robots for meal replication. Currently, both systems are focused solely on human use (see Spoon’s Tiffany McClurg using the Cloudchef system here).

The company has launched a website where you can find out more and request a demo.

Ome CEO Akshita Iyer Talks Second-Generation Smart Stove Knob

Last month, smart kitchen startup Ome launched its second generation smart knob, a retrofit device that gives gas or electric stoves the ability to be turned off remotely. The new knob comes three years after the company fulfilled the delivery for its first-generation knob (under the company’s then-name, Inirv), which was the culmination of a crowdfunding journey launched by the company’s founders.

I first connected with company CEO Akshita Iyer back in 2016 when the company, then-named Inirv, was a finalist in the Smart Kitchen Summit Startup Showcase.

“We were just at the idea stage with a 0.5 version of our smart stove knob, which was literally 3D printed at the time,” Iyer told me this week in an interview. “It was an exciting but challenging moment because the concept of retrofitting appliances with smart technology was still so new.”

It was a nascent market back in 2016, with only Inirv and Meld (which Hestan acquired to help build the Hestan Cue platform before the product ever shipped) creating stove smart knobs. At the time it was a side hustle for Iyer and her cofounder, but soon would become her full time focus as she launched a Kickstarter in 2017.

In our conversation, Iyer talked about how the original idea for building a smart stove knob can from personal experience. When her mother, recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s, accidentally started a kitchen fire after leaving the stove on, Iyer realized there wasn’t any smart home technology focused on helping those aging in place. Devices like Nest and Ring were making homes safer, but the kitchen—a critical area where fires often start—had been left out of the equation. Iyer saw an opportunity to create something that could prevent accidents like the one her mother experienced and got to work on building her first MVP.

Like many first-time entrepreneurs, Iyer was soon faced with challenges that can often be insurmountable for those trying to bring a hardware product to market.

“When I started, I thought, ‘How hard could this be?’ It seemed like a straightforward idea—just retrofit a knob to make stoves smarter. But we quickly realized the complexity. It wasn’t just about controlling the burner; we had to create an entire ecosystem with hardware, software, and a seamless customer experience. We had to integrate a motor, sensors, and Wi-Fi, all while ensuring the product was intuitive and safe. Those early days were tough, especially since we bootstrapped the business. It was a side hustle for a long time, and we didn’t fully appreciate how challenging it would be to bring a product like this to market.”

A pivotal moment for the company came in 2018 when Iyer appeared on Shark Tank. She told me that though they received an offer, they ultimately chose not to take the deal, a decision she now views as a blessing in disguise.

“We did get an offer from Robert Herjavec, and to be honest, it wasn’t a bad offer for where we were at the time, having just started with barely a functioning prototype. But we didn’t end up taking it. And I’m glad we didn’t, because at that point, it was still a side hustle. We hadn’t raised any money, didn’t have a team of engineers, and hadn’t figured out how to really build a company.”

It took the company almost four years to finally make good on its award commitments for its Kickstarter, and in 2021, it delivered its first-generation product to backers. Iyer said that first gen product had certain constraints—particularly with compatibility on stoves where the knobs were closer together, which led to some backers not being able to use the product. But the company kept engaged with its backers (as seen on the product’s Kickstarter page), promising to fulfill their needs with the next generation of the product.

And now, with the Ome Smart Knob, the company is both shipping to those backers who couldn’t make the first-gen product work while also selling the product on their website to new customers. Priced at $129, the company is emphasizing its messaging around fire-safety for senior citizens. Iyer sees potential for partnerships with senior living communities and hopes, in the long run, insurance companies could subsidize the purchase of her smart knob through discounts for homeowners who install the device, much like discounts offered for home security systems.

The Ome Smart Knob In Action

It will be interesting to see how much traction Ome gets now that they’ve been able to deliver on the vision Iyer first had back almost a decade ago. One of the key potential hurdles in broader acceptance by insurance companies and smart home ecosystem players to integrate products like the Ome is safety standards, something Iyer is working on as a Technical Committee member for UL Standard 858. UL 858 is a set of safety standards for electric ranges, and the group is working to update and modernize to factor in smart home technologies like those built into the Ome.

“We’re working to update UL 858 to allow for automation in a safe way. The critical thing is maintaining user consent—meaning the user still has to push and turn to activate the stove, and then our technology takes over. We’re in the process of getting certification to show the industry that we can build this technology without putting anyone at risk. The big concern with UL is ensuring no one can remotely turn on a stove, and we’ve built safeguards to prevent that.”

We’ll keep an eye on the progress around UL 858 and how Ome does with the rollout of its new smart knob. If you want to watch my full interview, just click play below.

Ome's Akshita Iyer Talks With The Spoon About The New Smart Stove Knob

SCHOTT Debuts New Ceramic Cooktop Glass That Can Double as Full Color Video Display

Tired of boring black-glass cooktops?

How about a cooktop that provides video cooking guides, color images, and more? That’s the idea behind SCHOTT’s new CERAN Luminoir TFT (thin film transistor) display.

At last week’s IFA conference in Germany, SCHOTT announced a new TFT display technology that enabled a full-color touch screen to display high-fidelity video and images. This is a big deal for cooktop manufacturers, who, alongside their customers, typically embrace the sleek black aesthetics of glass-ceramic surfaces. However, using any integrated display would normally mean sacrificing the dark black display associated with high-end ceramic cooktops, as black glass tends to absorb light, making display integration challenging.

However, SCHOTT says they solved this issue by optimizing light and color transmission through the glass-ceramic substrate, enabling the integration of high-resolution TFT displays while maintaining a deep black appearance when the display is off. This allows for the “dead front” effect, which keeps the cooking surface looking clean and like a typical high-end cooktop when not in use, but enabling a multicolor display when activated.

You can see the SCHOTT CERAN Luminoir TFT on display in the video below:

SCHOTT CERAN Luminoir® TFT - “Ready for undiscovered possibilities?”

Could this mean the cooktop surface itself has entered that chat as the preferred video display in the kitchen? Maybe, but it’s early. Over the past decade, various appliance and system manufacturers have jockeyed to position their preferred platform as the primary video display of choice in the kitchen. There was Amazon with its digital assistants, GE Appliances with its video-enabled built-in microwave oven, and Samsung pushing its Family Hub fridge with its large digital displays in the door. However, no one has really pushed the cooktop, mostly because the dark-black ceramic surfaces did not make for very good digital displays.

At least until now. We’ll keep an eye on this space to see if any cooktop makers move to integrate this technology and push their ceramic cooktops to become multimedia hubs. At the very least, expect some appliance brands to use this technology to offer visually rich touch-screen user interfaces, and most likely some of these will be on display by this time next year at IFA.

Sous Vide Specialist Anova Informs Community Its App Is Going Subscription, and It’s Not Going Well

Last week, Anova CEO Steve Svajian announced that the company will begin charging a subscription fee for new users of its sous vide circulator app starting August 21st, 2024. However, existing users who have downloaded the app and created an account before this date will not be impacted by the change. These users will be grandfathered into free access to the app’s full features.

Svajian explained that the decision to introduce a subscription fee stems from the fact that “each connected cook costs us money,” a cost that has become significant as the number of connected cooks now numbers in the “hundreds of millions.” The new Anova Sous Vide Subscription will be priced at $1.99 per month or $9.99 per year.

As Digital Trends noted, this announcement comes on the heels of Anova’s decision to sunset app connectivity for older Wi-Fi and Bluetooth sous vide circulators.

Unsurprisingly, the news has sparked discontent among Anova users. There are currently 195 comments on the Anova post announcing the new subscription, the majority of which express dissatisfaction, with many users stating, “I’m done with Anova.”

For instance, one user commented:

“I liked the product and bought it for friends and family as a gift. I will no longer be using this product and regret ever supporting this company.”

Another user remarked:

“You must have watched Sonos app troubles and thought, ‘Hold my beer.’ Charging your customers for your inability to innovate is a doozy!”

As a long-time Sonos user, I can relate to the frustration expressed in the Sonos comment, having witnessed how the music streaming hardware pioneer damaged its reputation with a glitchy app. While the Anova app may not be as central to the user experience as the Sonos app (I personally prefer using the on-device controls for the Anova), it highlights how upset customers become when a company alters or disrupts a previously satisfactory experience.

However, it’s important to recognize that smartphones have taught us that connected devices have a limited shelf life. Over time, products age, and companies like Apple, Samsung, and now Sonos and Anova, have made it clear that they can’t support old hardware indefinitely, particularly when maintaining apps incurs ongoing costs related to development, web services, and customer support.

The challenge for companies like Sonos and Anova is that consumers don’t perceive all connected electronics the same way, especially those that were initially free to use and expected to have a long lifespan. We’ve become accustomed to paying substantial sums for our phones and their associated monthly service fees, and despite this investment, most of us have accepted the forced obsolescence model that the smartphone industry has ingrained in us.

In contrast, when it comes to other devices, like connected cooking appliances, we tend to expect them to work indefinitely without additional costs. We assume that this new experience—connected cooking—will continue without requiring us to pay for the same level of service we previously enjoyed for free.

Considering the broader trajectory of Anova and its parent company, Electrolux, this news is not entirely surprising. Electrolux, like many appliance companies, has faced challenges in recent years, including laying off three thousand employees last fall. Despite these difficulties, they have continued to operate Anova as a relatively independent entity. Unlike other major brands that have shuttered their smart kitchen acquisitions, Electrolux appears to be making a concerted effort to keep Anova going in a tough economic environment.

It remains to be seen how this move will affect the brand. The backlash is predictable, but I wonder if the outrage is primarily coming from a vocal minority. I suspect that the “100 million connected cooks” figure is somewhat exaggerated, as Anova claims to have powered over 100 million cooks on its website. I also believe that many of these cooks, like me, are from users who simply plug in the device and use it directly without relying on the app.

Loch Launches Second-Gen Tiny Dishwasher With the $299 Capsule Solo

Ever since Tetra unexpectedly got people excited about the idea of tiny dishwashers in 2018, the category has had mixed success.

Some, like the Bob, have shipped but, unfortunately, haven’t made it stateside. Others, like the Shabosh, seem to be stuck in development hell, with backers wondering when they will ship. As for the dishwasher that kicked off our obsession with small-footprint countertop dishwashers, it never made it out the door and sold its assets last year.

However, those in the US looking for a tiny dishwasher have had an option: The Capsule dishwasher, which shipped to backers in December 2022 and is now available in the US. Soon, tiny dishwasher users will have another option as Loch Electronics, the Scottish company behind the Capsule, is launching a Kickstarter campaign for its second-generation countertop dishwasher, the Capsule Solo.

According to an announcement sent to The Spoon, the Capsule Solo was “designed in response to customer demand for a more affordable option.” Solo pricing will start at $299 at launch, which is $100 less than the first-generation Capsule dishwasher. This pricing includes a bottom rack with a cutlery basket, a clean water tank, and inlet and outlet hoses.

The Solo looks quite similar in size and form factor to the original Capsule, including the signature tall-standing design (reminiscent of a gaming PC casing) that allows for cleaning a frying pan or other taller dishes. According to the just-launched Kickstarter page, the company plans to ship the Solo to backers starting in December of this year.

And just like the original, 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 Solo is also extremely portable, with a handle to carry it from room to room or out to your RV.

While the company isn’t disclosing any shipment figures for the original Capsule, they did tell us that the original Capsule campaign was the most successful Scottish crowdfunding campaign of all time. It raised £566,605, which is $721 thousand. According to the company, across all platforms, the Capsule raised $1.2 million.

Given the lower price and previous track record for success, it wouldn’t be surprising if the company’s newest tiny dishwasher exceeds the funding totals of the original.

Smart Kitchen Roundup: Suvie Adds Air Fry to Cooking Robot, Combustion Launches ‘MeatNet Cloud’

It’s been a quiet summer in the world of kitchen tech, but over the past week, some interesting news has dropped. Here’s a roundup of the stories from this past week:

Suvie Rolls Out Suvie 3.0 Plus With Airfry

Suvie, the company behind the multi-zone kitchen cooking appliance with built-in refrigeration, announced today the launch of its Suvie 3.0 Plus. The 3.0 Plus adds air-frying capabilities to the appliance, powered by the addition of dual convection fans, one in each cooking zone. This means users of the new model can air fry in one zone while using any one of the other 15 cooking modes in the other zone.

According to CEO Robin Liss, the addition of air frying was in part due to feedback from the Suvie community. Liss says they’ve added other new features, including a new ‘ Mix & Match’ mode that allows users to to prepare different meals in each zone simultaneously.

“A lot of people like to have a Chinese takeout night,” Liss told The Spoon. They’ll buy orange chicken and maybe Mongolian beef, and you can cook the orange chicken in the top zone and the Mongolian beef in the bottom zone. Mix and Match mode lets you do that.”

The new Suvie 3.0 Plus will be priced at $429 with a meal subscription plan. The company will also continue to sell the Suvie 3.0 base model, which will remain at $299 with a meal plan. Liss says they hope to ship the new model to customers in late September.

Combustion Adds ‘MeatNet Cloud’ and SafeCook

Combustion, the maker of the Predictive Thermometer, announced this week that they have added two new features to the 8-sensor device: MeatNet Cloud connectivity and SafeCook.

If you’re wondering what the heck MeatNet is, it’s Combustion’s trademarked term for its ad hoc Bluetooth network that connects its thermometer, the Combustion display and the app on a smartphone. With the addition of MeatNet Cloud, Combustion thermometer users can now monitor a cook live and in real-time from anywhere.

To enable MeatNet Cloud, you have to jump through a few set-up hoops. You’ll have to enable a smartphone or table device as a bridge (the Combustion thermometer only has Bluetooth, it needs a Wi-Fi powered device to deliver the cooking data to the cloud), and once your bridge device is connected (and left at home when you leave), users can monitor the state of the cook with another mobile device while they are taking a run to the store to get some BBQ sauce or wood chips for their smoker.

Combustion also announced the addition of SafeCook, which the company says “uses “integrated” or cumulative bacterial destruction to determine food safety. It adds up the bacterial body count at every step in the cooking process.” This means that Combustion has essentially incorporated all the recommended USDA and FDA temperatures into the app for each type of meat needed to ensure that bacteria is effectively killed. Users who turn on the SafeCook feature will be alerted when the food is safe to eat.

Combustion CEO Chris Young often creates elaborate (and fun to watch) videos around specific topics his company is working on, and this mission to kill food bacteria is no exception. You can check out his new video about how to balance the fine line between making sure your food is cooked enough to kill any bacteria and not overly dry.

Nymble Offloads AI to Cloud and Adds New Features as It Inches Toward Manufactuing

Cooking robot startup Nymble sent out an update this week on new features and their plan to start shipping their cooking robot to customers later this month.

According to the update sent by company CEO Raghav Gupta, the company recently enabled the Nymble cooking robot to offload AI compute to the cloud. The company’s AI, which is fairly straightforward machine learning that enables the appliance to optimize cooking and understand specific routines and preferences of users, has up to this point run on a small model embedded in the appliance. Nymble now says that it AI computation can now be run in the cloud on its larger and faster AI model (which it dubs ‘Teacher’). In the case of slow connectivity, Nymble says that AI compute will run locally on the appliance in its scaled-down AI model (dubbed ‘Student’).

In addition to its addition of cloud AI compute, Nymble has also enabled users to find recipes based on dietary preferences and allergen restrictions and to skip instruction steps in a guided recipe (which, according to the company, was a top request among its beta testers).

These updates come as the company nears the ship date for its cooking robot. According to Gupta, the Nymble robot will start mass production later this month.

Samsung’s 2024 Family Hub Gets Enhanced Food Recognition Features With Latest Update

This past week, Samsung announced they were updating software for those with a Family Hub fridge.

The update has a bunch of new features, many of which were announced at CES in January, but the most interesting one is what looks to be its much-improved food recognition capability. The new computer vision-powered features were are specific to the latest edition to the Family Hub line, the official name of which is the incredibly long Samsung Bespoke 4-Door Flex Refrigerators with AI Family Hub+ and AI Vision Inside.

According to the Samsung release, the latest update will allow the 2024 Family Hub to recognize more than 33 food items, including fruits and vegetables. Samsung notes in the release’s small print that they will continue to expand the number of items the system can recognize and that if the item is blocked by your hand, it will be listed as “unrecognizable.” The new update will also recommend recipes based on what you have on hand, including “thousands of recipes from the Samsung Food community.”

The update also includes enabling ‘Samsung Tap View, ‘ which mirrors content from Samsung Galaxy phones, such as photos or videos, as well as recipes you find on your phone.

On one hand, we have to hand it to Samsung. They’ve been at the smart fridge thing for a decade, and they’ve evolved the fridge from being primarily a fridge with a big monitor to stream music and video to one that looks like it’s finally getting smart inside with the camera and update.

As is always the case with Samsung, the company has so many platforms it can get confusing. One example is that the company made a big to-do almost a year ago when they announced Samsung Food, which is the evolution and Samsung-ification of the Whisk app. Samsung Food essentially looks to be the consumer electronics giant’s central recipe and food planning app, yet there’s just one passing mention of it in this latest update.

My guess is that in 2025, the integration between Samsung Food and Family Hub will be much farther along, and we may ultimately see the Samsung Food and Family Hub food and recipe management merged under one monolithic Samsung food and fridge app.