If you were to bet on what the oldest kitchen tool in existence is, you’d be smart to put your money on the knife. It’s not just centuries old but tens of thousands of centuries old, as humans have been using sharp objects to cut food for over two million years.
So when someone says they want to reinvent something that old, it’s natural to be skeptical. After all, what exactly can you do to a knife to make it better at what it does?
If you ask Scott Heimendinger, he’d tell you that adding ultrasonic technology to a knife can actually improve this ancient tool. Heimendinger, who previously founded a consumer sous vide startup in Sansaire, has been working on doing just that for more than half a decade, and today he announced that end result of all that work is now on sale and will ship early next year.
So what exactly is an ultrasonic knife? If you’re familiar with ultrasonic toothbrushes, it’s similar in that ultrasonic energy creates thousands of vibrations per second. In fact, according to the announcement, the knife (called the C-200) will vibrate 40 thousand times per second.
Given the time and energy invested, I asked Heimendinger if he was nervous about launching a new product despite being a startup veteran.
“Of course I’m nervous,” he said. “This is a thing I’ve been working on for nearly six years and it’s gonna see daylight for the first time ever. And I’m totally nervous. I have so much of my heart and soul poured into this thing and money and literal blood.”
Since it’s been more than a decade since his first product launch with Sansaire, I also asked him how the landscape for smart kitchen products has changed since then.
“In 2012 and 2013, the Modernist cooking movement was really sort of on an upward trajectory,” said Heimendinger. “Now, I think that the more prevalent movement in cooking, especially home cooking, is not more technology but less. It’s sort of a return to analog in a whole bunch of ways.”
If that’s the case, why add ultrasonic technology to a knife? According to Heimendinger, one of the truisms in the world of kitchen tools is that they must make a cook’s life easier, not harder. Smart kitchen tech, done poorly, just adds more steps. With his knife, those thousands of invisible vibrations per second help make cutting up to 50% easier.
“It was so important to me to design a product where all you have to do is touch a button,” said Heimendinger. “That’s it. There’s no phone pairing. There’s no Wi-Fi setup. There’s no anything. And you can use it when it’s off, as its also a really good analog knife.”
Still, even with the focus on simplicity of use, Heimendinger realizes the knife community can be skeptical, and not everyone will be ready to welcome something like an ultrasonic knife.
“The knife community can be dogmatic in certain ways,” he said. “I know that there’s going to be some people who think that (adding ultrasonic tech) is anathema to the sanctity of a pounded piece of sharp metal. But I hope that they’ll be able to see that I’m taking this quite seriously. And if we want to have a conversation about what actually makes cutting easier for home cooks, then there’s data to support this does just that.”
According to the announcement, the blade is made from Japanese AUS-10 san mai stainless steel that’s durable and corrosion-resistant. The button and grip are suitable for both right- and left-handed users, and the blade can be re-sharpened just like a traditional knife.
The product will retail for $399. Production of the first batch begins in November, and pre-orders open this week on seattleultrasonics.com, with deliveries expected in January 2026.
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