Tell me if this sounds familiar: You go into the fridge to get a refreshing cold can of your favorite beverage and, surprise surprise, someone forgot to restock the fridge.
Maybe it’s you. Maybe it’s your roommate. Whoever it is, you’re now the sad sack stuck drinking room temperature beer or wine from a can (and you do drink wine from a can, ok?) wishing someone just had a little more beverage planning foresight.
But what if you could toss that can or bottle into a ‘microwave for cooling’ and almost instantly have an ice-cold beverage?
That’s the utopia that Matrix Industries has in mind with their new Juno Chiller. The product is based on a technology called thermoelectric cooling, which longtime Spoon readers know is based on a principle called the Peltier Effect, which essentially pushes phonons from one place to another through electrical excitement and in turn can remove heat from, say, a refrigerator chamber or a can of pop .
It’s complicated to say the least and I’m not a particle physicist, but what I can do is shoot iPhone video at CES press events that shows you the technology in action:
Matrix is not the only company looking to apply thermoelectric cooling technology to new applications. Phononic has been talking up their solid state cooling technology for some time, but over the past few years have largely focused on displacing compressor-based refrigerators in commercial refrigeration environments.
Spoon readers may also recall others have talked about a “microwave for cooling” before. Frigondas, a startup based in Spain, pitched the idea of an actual microwave that would both heat and flash-freeze. It’s an intriguing idea if they can pull it off, but the company’s largely gone quiet ever since pitching in it 2017 and 2018.
Matrix, on the other hand, seems to be just getting started with their product and plan on releasing their home beverage cooler later this year. If you want to get in on the cold drink action, they’ve launched an Indiegogo for the Juno Chiller, which would allow you get the beverage cooling appliance for half off ($199) in August if everything goes according plan.
As you can see by the product hero reel below, the final consumer edition will look much different than the working prototype shown above, featuring a much taller chamber that will allow you to chill everything from a can of beer to a bottle of wine.
Aaaaand what’s exactly revolutionary about this device? Camping coolers using thermoelectric effect are sold since forever 4 times cheaper and 4 times larger than this scam.
It’s pretty simple: Camping coolers don’t chill drink to fridge temperature in 60 seconds.