CES was full of safety tech, especially focused on home and auto security. But there was also one solution aiming to create a safer kitchen environment.
Inirv React’s first product is a retrofit knob and detector system. The temperature and motion detectors communicate with the IoT-enabled knob and allow you to monitor and adjust stove temperature to prevent you from accidentally burning your dinner — or burning the house down. Inirv was actually part of our 2016 SKS Startup Showcase. As we wrote back then:
The Inirv knobs give you remote control of your burners via the smartphone app so you’ll never burn your food – but the sensor will actually remind you if it senses a lack of motion around the stove for too long and left your food unattended.
Inirv React doesn’t just alert you if there’s something burning at the stove. You can also use it to control your burners remotely, adjusting the heat in accordance with a recipe. You can even set cook times/temperatures via the app and the knobs will automatically adjust to the correct level at the right time.
The Durham, NC-based company was originally planning to ship its smart stove system in 2017 after a successful Kickstarter campaign, but clearly that didn’t happen. They ended up continuing to crowdfund, eventually raising $175K via Kickstarter by the end of 2019.
Past struggles aside, the Inirv team at CES seemed confident that it can hit its new estimated ship date of March 2020. One unit (AKA knob) will cost $99, or you can buy four for $279. An Inirv rep on the CES show floor said that it has already pre-sold 30,000 React units.
This may seem like an overly-intense solution to leaving the stove on, but house fires are a serious business. Cooking fires account for nearly half of all in-home fires. According to the U.S. Fire Administration, from 2014-16, cooking fires led to 195 deaths and $463 million in property loss in the U.S. alone. Smoke alarms can alert you once there’s already a problem, but Inirv claims it has the benefit of preventing an issue before it happens.
Since cooking fires are so common, it’s no surprise that Inirv isn’t the only company trying to get in on stove safety. iGuardStove and Innohome (two more SKS Startup Showcase finalists!) also make devices to turn off stoves and prevent cooking fires. Innohome (sold under the SmartRange brand name in North America) is the more common. Its device is cheaper than Inirv — $199 for four-burner coverage — but it doesn’t have the same nifty heat-control capabilities; it can only shut the stovetop completely off.
Innohome’s products are already shipping and Inirv is still relatively untested, so it’s too soon to say if the latter’s system will a) go to market, and b) work as planned. But it’s safe to say that we’re intrigued by the future of kitchen safety solutions.
They’d be better off licensing the technology to stove manufacturers who could simply build it into their product.
I would be more likely to purchase it if it came built into a stove. Yeah I’m Mr. Wonderful. 😉