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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Heatbox

CES 2022: Steambox To Show Off Self-Heating Lunchbox

If one of your new year’s resolutions is to pack better lunches for your kids or yourself, here’s one way you might do that: with a steam-heated lunchbox. That’s the idea behind the Steambox, a connected lunchbox that will heat food up with a push of a button.

Here’s how the Steambox works: Working like a bain-marie boiler, the Steambox creates steam using its built-in electric heating technology. The user simply adds water in the morning and, when they are ready to eat, turns the Heatbox on and the food will be warm in 8-12 minutes. The box is rechargeable and can heat up to three times on a single charge.

Of course, before you plunk money down for your Steambox, you should know that the company has been working on the products for a couple of years and has a bit of history. The Steambox got started via a Kickstarter campaign back in 2019 and since that time, has showed up CES before, changed its name, had some sort of mysterious dispute, and now is back at CES to show off its lunchbox with promises of an April 2022 delivery.

We’re heading to Vegas and we’ll be checking the Steambox out as well as other food and kitchen gadgets as part of our CES 2022 coverage. We’ll be there all week, so check back on the site, check out our Instagram and Twitter, and send us your tips.

Kickstarter: Heatbox is a Stylish, Steam-Heated Lunchbox

Pardon me while I put on my old man hat and shake my fist: Back in my day, we didn’t have fancy lunchboxes! They were made of metal, had one compartment, and they definitely didn’t heat your food up!

Times have changed and so have lunchboxes, as evidenced by the Heatbox, the portable, self-powered, steam-heating lunchbox, which recently launched its Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign.

While it isn’t emblazoned with old school Marvel superheroes, from the pictures, the Heatbox is one good-looking lunchbox. It has a minimalist, European design (which makes sense given that the company is in Amsterdam), complete with a bamboo lid. But all that form appears to have a function.

There’s a removable compartment that you put your food in, complete with lid to prevent leaks. Add 20 ml of water to the device and charge it using a USB-C cable. When you’re ready to eat, remove the inner lid and push the button. Heatbox doesn’t say how hot it will make your food, only that it takes 8 to 12 minutes to warm it up (there are different intensities of heat depending on what you are heating), and that it will heat three times on the low setting on a single charge.

You can order a Heatbox for $132 with an estimated ship date of July 2020. The campaign beat its goal of raising $33,000 in 24 hours and has since gone on to raise nearly $53,000. Though as always, caveat emptor when it comes to crowdfunded hardware projects as they may never materialize.

If you don’t want to wait until next summer, you could go for the LunchEaze, which also launched on Kickstarter and is shipping now. LunchEaze is $150, doesn’t use steam, and is more like a portable slow cooker.

Another reason to like Heatbox is that it could make taking your leftovers to work more attractive. Instead of nuking them, steam them back to life. Enticing you to eat more leftovers means less food waste. And that’s not something I’d shake my fist at.