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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

connected home

Moar Data! Amazon Buys Smart WiFi Company Eero

Amazon announced today it is acquiring home mesh networking and WiFi router company Eero. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Eero is popular thanks to its smart mesh routers, which make setting up and connecting devices to your WiFi easy. But Amazon isn’t just buying Eero because of its sales. By owning Eero, Amazon will also get more data at the network level as to how consumers are using their internet-connected devices. Is your Roku gobbling up most of your data usage? Why don’t you check out an Amazon Prime Video free trial! And as my former colleague, Stacey Higginbotham of the Internet of Things Podcast pointed out, the opposite is true as well. Amazon can see which devices are inefficient, then build its own, ideally better, solutions.

The Eero system creates a mesh network by deploying small hardware beacons around your home. Kinda like how you can put multiple Echos throughout your house. The goal of Alexa has always been to replicate the ubiquitous “computer” from Star Trek–an invisible presence that responds to your vocal commands. Seems like adding Alexa functionality to the beacons is probably in the cards to work towards that ubiquity.

The Eero purchase also makes sense when you think about the press conference Amazon held back in November, where it launched “Frustration Free Setup.” Part of that mission was WiFi Simple Setup. As The Verge wrote then:

Now, compatible devices will be able to access the Wi-Fi credentials stored on your Amazon products so that they can automatically connect to the internet within seconds of being plugged in.

Connecting Alexa-powered devices to your Eero-powered network could now be even more vertically integrated, not to mention making Amazon-brand appliances like the Alexa microwave easier to install. If Amazon builds more connected appliances (fridges, dishwashers, countertop ovens, etc.), it could make installation that much easier and even direct Eero owners towards buying them (Amazon noticed you don’t have a fridge connected to the internet, you should totally buy this Amazon-brand one). This of course, would create more lock-in for Amazon’s Alexa ecosystem (good for Amazon, bad for consumers).

Of course, maybe your Amazon house will come with Eero already built in as well.

But the acquisition just happened today, and these are just the standard hot takes and speculation. However, as my other former colleague, Janko Roettgers of Variety pointed out on Twitter:

It’s old hat at this point to say this, but we are handing over not just more, but deeper data about our behaviors to big companies in the name of convenience. Most of us seem fine with that, so don’t expect these types of acquisitions from the big tech companies to stop.

Smarter CEO Christian Lane Coming To SKS Europe

At the age of 19, Christian Lane became the youngest person to ever pitch for investment on British TV’s Dragons’ Den, on which he won an investment from Dragon Theo Paphitis.

Back then, Lane was pitching a foldable stationary product called Foldio, but nowadays he’s the CEO of a company building products to make the kitchen smarter and more connected.

Lane’s company, Smarter, launched their first product — a WiFi-enabled kettle — back in 2013, and their latest product is a retrofit fridge cam that lets you remotely check what’s in your fridge via mobile phone.

How did Lane build a startup in the connected kitchen? That’s what he’ll tell us at Smart Kitchen Summit Europe on June 12th at the Guinness Storehouse. You can buy your tickets here.

See you in Dublin. 

Dessert Meets Tech and It’s Love at First Bite

It’s February 14, which means sappy love songs, heart-shaped chocolate boxes, and . . . 3D printing?

As Michael Wolf predicted in his prescient post “10 Trends Shaping the Future of Cooking in 2018,” dessert-tech is a market that’s growing fast. From intelligent ovens that speed up the cookie-making process to a whole mess of ice cream innovation, we’ve rounded up some of the sweetest (sorry) pairings in dessert-tech for your V-day holiday pleasure.

Desserts On Demand:

Some chocolate made-to-order ice cream from Solo Gelato.

Solo Gelato

This Israeli-based startup is basically applying the Keurig system to desserts. Currently, their capsules containing ice cream mixture are quite a bit bigger than the coffee pods, though the two systems work in a very similar way: after the Solo Gelato capsules are inserted, the machine “freezes and expels air” into them. Sixty seconds later, out comes fresh gelato. The company’s website also boasts a cloud-based database and “state of the art mechanical and cooling solutions.” Solo Gelato currently boasts a lineup of 24 flavors, with offerings including sorbet, traditional ice cream, and even boozy treats for the 21+ crowd.

Churned-to-order ice cream made with the freezing power of liquid nitrogen has been around for a few years. However, bringing on-demand ice cream into your home, Solo Gelato is hoping to “disrupt the ice cream industry” in the very way that coffee pods disrupted the coffee industry. (Side question: to what extent have coffee pods really done that?)

Tigoût

Another dessert company piggybacking off the Keurig model is the Argentinian startup Tigoût—though really, they’re more like a souped-up Easy-Bake Oven. How it works: pop two capsules into their designated slots in the top of the machine (I’m assuming one is liquid and one is dry ingredients, but no details are given). In just a few minutes (again, no details on cook time are given) you get a freshly baked pastry. According to LinkedIn, the startup is preparing to launch a minimum viable product (MVP) and has a patent in process.

Tigoût also has an integrated app which allows you to order more pastry capsules, monitor your baking process and set alarms. As of now, Tigoût offers seven different types of dessert capsules ranging from chocolate fudge to a caramel “volcano.”

CHiP’s cookie oven promises fresh, homemade cookies in 10 minutes.

CHiP Cookie Oven

What if instead of having a warm, melty chocolate chip cookie in, say, an hour—taking into account the time to soften the butter, make the dough, shape it, and bake it—you could get your mitts on one in only 10 minutes? That’s the promise of CHiP, a smart oven that uses patent-pending convection cooking technology to speed up the cookie baking process.

For all the tech nerds out there, CHiP is also wifi-enabled and can integrate into your smart-home system. Customers can order cookie dough pods in a variety of flavors, including vegan and gluten-free options, which are clad in biodegradable parchment paper for easy insertion into the oven. Milk not included.

Less Sugar, Less Dairy

Healthier options are another big trend in the dessert-meets-tech sphere, especially when it comes to ice cream. Vegan, non-dairy, high-protein and low-sugar desserts are gaining popularity, as proven by the runaway success of HaloTop. The low-calorie treat, which became the No. 1 best-selling ice cream in U.S. grocery stores in 2017, and other ice cream brands are scrambling to cash in on the healthier trend. Plant-based desserts such as the coconut-based ice cream NadaMoo!, non-dairy Ben & Jerry’s, and a whole host of vegan ‘screams have been rising rapidly in popularity.

NadaMoo! is a coconut-based ice cream based in Austin, TX.

However, not all health-conscious ice creams come in pint form. Veru is a company that uses patent-protected flash-freezing technology to make ice pops that are low-calorie, additive free, and (apparently) still manage to taste good. They make use of our old friend liquid nitrogen to freeze their ice cream mixes to temperatures as low as -196 degrees Celsius in just seconds. This quick freeze allows them to preserve maximum flavor so that they can cut calories without sacrificing on taste.

3D Printing

Another pioneer in the frozen-dessert field is Pixsweet, an L.A.-based company that participated in the Smart Kitchen Summit startup showcase last year. Pixsweet makes customizable, 3D-printed popsicles, so you can turn everything from brand logos to unicorns into edible pops.

The pop possibilities are endless!

Pastry chefs are another group embracing the edible 3D printing trend. One of the most popular, who has also become an internet darling, is Dinara Kasko, an architect-turned-pastry chef known across the web for her sculptural desserts (just check out her 555,000 Instagram followers). Kasko uses computer modeling software to make intricate molds, which she then 3D prints and uses to make her custom cakes. The popularity of her desserts and the customizable pops from Pixsweet suggest 3D printing might play a significant role in the future of dessert.

Dessert Meal Subscription Kits

It seems that no matter your lifestyle and dietary preference, there’s a meal kit for that. Now sweet lovers can sate their sugary cravings with Sweetbake, a food subscription service from Nestle (its first) that caters to those with a sweet tooth. For $35 per month, subscribers get two ready-to-bake kits—just add milk, butter, and eggs. At first glance, it’s like a fancier version of boxed brownies, only you get the added thrill of receiving mail. However, Sweetbake’s repertoire extends far beyond chocolate chip cookies; their kits have ingredients for everything from gingerbread biscotti to peppermint brownie cups.

One of sweetbake’s dessert subscription boxes.

They’re not the only company breaking into the dessert delivery kit sphere: companies foodstirs and SoBakeable also offer baking subscriptions. The latter even provides videos with recipes and baking tips for those who download the companion app.

What’s Next?

One dessert-meets-tech innovation we’d love to see at the Spoon is a home bean-to-bar chocolate-maker. As contributor Allen Weiner has pointed out, “the home chocolate market appears to be a large, untapped opportunity.” Tech entrepreneurs, smart kitchen gadget makers, and startup upstarts—we’ve got your next project ready for you.

Did we miss anyone doing exciting things in the dessert/tech field? Tell us in the comments!

Rubin: Essential Home Will Be The “Bridge” Between Competing Smart Home Ecosystems

Last night Andy Rubin got on stage with Walt Mossberg at the Code Conference to discuss his new company.

The two spent a good chunk of the conversation talking about the Essential Phone, but when they finally got to the Essential Home, they didn’t disappoint.

I wrote yesterday about what we already knew about the Essential Home smart home product, but Andy’s discussion with Walt gave us a better understanding of the company’s strategy for the device.

Rubin and his team have (correctly) identified the main problem of the smart home as one of too many competing ecosystems. The main goal of the Essential Home is to solve for that.

Per Rubin: “One of the problems in the home is the UI problem. There are too many things you have to interact with in your home.”

While we often use that term UI to describe the various consumer interaction layers such as voice, touch or motion, Rubin is using the term more broadly here. He points to a fragmented smart home world with too many competing apps, smart home protocols, and technologies. And, as the guy behind Android, Rubin admitted that in many ways he helped create the problem.

“I feel somewhat responsible. One of things Android helped do make really easy to write a mobile app. the guy building your IoT doorbell, he’s going to write an app.”

According to Rubin, the problem with so many apps and technologies is each time a consumer walks through their smart home, they are walking through a series of competing apps and ecosystems.

“In certain ways,” said Rubin “the industry has recognized what the problem is, which is you don’t want to launch someone’s app when you walk up to your front door to unlock it, where they have their own UI, their own login credentials, and when you finally get through front door and its time to turn on your lights, do the same thing with the guy that built your light bulb.”

He’s right in saying the industry knows fragmentation is the main problem in consumer adoption. In our survey of over 100 smart home execs last December, the number one hurdle to adoption of smart home products identified by industry insiders is confusion over too many smart home platforms.

In other words, fragmentation. Or, as Rubin puts it, “a UI problem.”

Rubin said the solution to the problem of UI fragmentation is to bridge all of these competing ecosystems by working to integrate as many of them as possible together.

“You have to think of it as a UI problem,” said Rubin, “and you have to solve the UI for the home as an interoperability and integration issue. You can’t just support ten devices; you have to support one hundred thousand devices.”

That’s a lot of devices, but Rubin plans to get there by bridging the various ecosystems across the world of Apple, Amazon, Google and more. In other words, he doesn’t want to compete with the giants, but instead wants to connect them to one another.

“You can think of this as everyone is creating an island by creating their own ecosystem, so building bridges is the best way to describe what we’re doing. It has to talk to all these ecosystems, whether it’s Smart Things, HomeKit, or Google Home, or Thread or Weave.”

Rubin didn’t go into the specifics of how he plans to solve the fragmentation issue, other than to say they think they’ve found a way to do it. Whatever the approach is, it sounds like one built from the operating system on up with a focus on security.

“We had to build a new operating system so it can speak all those protocols and it can do it security and privately.”

That operating system is called Ambient OS. It will be part of the new Essential Home which is rumored to ship in late summer.

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