About a decade ago, IKEA famously released a concept video laying out its vision for the kitchen of the future. The central concept for their envisioned future kitchen was a kitchen table that not only made the experience of cooking and eating interactive with a touch interface, but also had built-in induction transmitters under the table’s surface that transmitted energy to power appliances and powered invisible-to-the-eye heating zones.
It was a compelling peek into what could be. While induction cooktop hob technology was and is a somewhat mature technology, the idea of using an induction transmitter to provide both wireless power and heating in everyday kitchen countertop surfaces fired up our imaginations in the same way Tom Cruise’s John Anderton character did about gesture interfaces more than two decades ago in Minority Report.
Since IKEA released its video, the futuristic idea of using an ordinary surface as a source of power and cooking heat has been inching slowly toward becoming a reality without ever seeming to make it to market. While there have been some efforts in standards-building by the same organization that brought us wireless phone charging standard Qi, actual product introductions of kitchen surfaces with built-in wireless power and heating have been pretty much non-existent.
But that’s changed over the twelve months thanks to a company named Cloen. Nestled on the east coast of the Iberian peninsula, this small Spanish startup has begun to pull back the curtain on the technology they’ve been developing for the better part of a decade. The company’s technology, which it calls Cloen Cordless Technology (CCT), is built around a dual induction plate system that provides heating to cook zones and wireless energy transmission to countertop appliances.
The company’s patented technology is on display in New York City at the flagship showroom of Spanish tile maker Porcelanosa. For Porcelanosa, another (and much older) company that also makes its home in the Valencian Community of Spain, Cloen built a custom-designed set of kitchen countertops and furniture with the CCT technology under the Spanish tile and furniture company’s Gamadecor brand.
You can watch a demo video of the CCT-powered Gamadecor product below:
In addition to building their own countertop kitchen products and those of partners (like Porcelanosa) with built-in transmission systems, Cloen is also working on a new line of countertop small appliances under the BeCordless brand, a joint venture between Cloen and cookware company Bergner. These countertop cooking appliances, which you can see in usage in the video above, include blenders, toasters, and air fryers.
The company is working with Porcelanosa on the cooking surface roadmap to build modular kitchen cooktops with up to five invisible cooking and power transmission zones. It also works with other manufacturers to build kitchen tables with dual-cooking and power transmission zones.
Above: Rendering of a 5 dual induction modular system being developed for 2025 release
The company has also worked with TV show producers in Spain and South Korea to build custom products for chef-centric cooking programs. In fact, you can see the Cloen-powered cooktop on Netflix in the reality TV show Lady Tamara, which is about Spanish aristocrat and chef Tamara Falcó.
For its product in Korea, the company is developing a table similar to the one in the IKEA concept video. However, if you expect to cook on a wood-only kitchen table, you might be slightly disappointed. According to Cloen, the table will have both power zones on the wood surface and induction heating in an in-laid glass area.
The company, which was founded by Pablo Cerra, an engineer by training, has grown to around 20 people, over half of them engineers. The focus on engineering is due to Cerra’s intention of building everything needed for the system. Cloen owns not only the core technology concepts but also develops the software and provides the SoC circuit boards to build into its partners’ systems.
“The secret is the software algorithm and the chip (microprocessor),” Cerra told The Spoon. “That’s secret to the whole technology.”
Cerra and his team decided to build a full-stack company to be an ingredient technology for their own and other brands’ wireless power kitchen technology because he felt the foundation needed to be laid for the market.
“This technology has to be for everyone,” Cerra said. “If you buy a mobile phone now, you can charge it with a normal charger or wireless charging. The thing is, wireless power and induction for the kitchen have to be the same.”
But Cloen isn’t alone. As mentioned, the Wireless Power Consortium is working on its Ki standard, and we’ve heard from multiple appliance brands that they are investigating and actively building products that will include wireless power. Other startups and tile companies are also looking at building wireless power systems.
Stepping back, the arrival of wireless power and invisible cooking zones is also part of a broader trend towards technology and functionality in the kitchen receding into the background. Sure, it’s part of the invisible kitchen design trend, but it’s also bigger than that, part of the megatrend that has technology disappearing before our eyes, fueled by AI, voice and gesture interface platforms, technology miniaturization, and the influence of companies like Apple and, well, IKEA over the past decade.
