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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Heatworks

Sadly, the Shabosh Countertop Hybrid Dishwasher May Be The Closest We Get to The Tetra

A countertop dishwasher called Shabosh is attracting lots of backers on Kickstarter, having raised over $55 thousand from 535 backers.

At first glance, the dishwasher looks a lot like an awful lot like another small countertop dishwasher that garnered a whole lot of buzz five years ago at CES. But while the Shabosh is visually reminiscent of the Tetra, which promised to run a cycle in ten minutes with just a half gallon of water, it’s a far cry functionally from the little wonder that had many of us lusting for something as pedestrian as a dishwasher.

Before we get to the differences, we must look at what happened to Tetra. Unfortunately, for those of us who have been patiently waiting for the little guy, we may never get to put it through its paces since Heatworks, the company behind the Tetra, shut its doors and put its assets up for auction last fall.

The news that the company had put its assets up for auction surfaced last fall when an IP acquisition firm named Hilco Streambank announced it would bid on Heatworks assets. The company was ultimately successful, stating on its website that it had “contacted more than 300 potential targets and brought 16 of those parties to the table through advanced discussions and negotiations. The process culminated in a public auction, and a sale closed in December, 2022.”

The first signs of trouble for the Tetra were the seemingly endless delays and on-again, off-again promises of a ship date. Along the way, Heatworks struck up deals with companies like BASF to create the detergent modules, but it looks like they may have run out of capital before it could build the machine and ship it.

So while there may be an outside chance that we see something resembling a Tetra, it won’t be from Heatworks.

Which brings us back to Shabosh. While the tiny dishwasher looks a lot like the Tetra, the way it works is very different. Unlike the Tetra, which was designed to run a fully automatic washing cycle within its closed glass enclosure, the Shabosh has an open top that allows the machine’s user to spray dishes with its water spout. That’s right, washing dishes with the Shabosh is not that different than hand-washing dishes in a sink, only you get to do it in a cool-looking glass enclosure.

But hey, that’s probably why the Shabosh’s full retail price is targeted to be $200, which is about 40% of what the Tetra was targeted to sell for. And who knows, unlike the Tetra, we may actually see the Kabosh make it to consumer homes sometime soon.

Meet the DUO, The Portable Carafe With Precision Temperature Control

At last year’s CES, one of my favorite new products was the Tetra, a small countertop dishwasher that cleans the equivalent of two place settings of dishes in about 15 minutes with a single gallon of water.

The product was introduced by Heatworks, a company I had never heard of before, mostly because I was not in the business of writing about water heaters.

Maybe I should have been paying more attention because, as it turns out, the technology that powers their water heaters can be used in a variety of devices, including the company’s latest, a portable water carafe with precision temperature control called the DUO.

The DUO, which the company is introducing at CES 2019, is a battery powered portable carafe that holds up to a liter of water. The DUO can heat water to within 1° of a desired setpoint and also also includes a water filtration system.

I caught up with Heatworks CEO, Jerry Callahan, at CES Unveiled, who told me that they made the DUO because they realized how important precise water temperature was to making anything from a good cup of coffee to green tea to baby formula.

“We started with the premise that people really wanted to get the exact right temperature,” said Callahan.

I could see myself using a DUO when I’m in a hotel room (does anyone else get grossed out by hotel coffee machines? Thought so) or when I’m camping. I can also see using it for filtering drinking water on the road since I never know how good the drinking water is in any city I might be in.

When I asked Callahan when the DUO might ship, he said they were hoping that it would be available by end of the year. My assumption is that probably means first half 2020, in large part because the company missed its original promised ship date for the Tetra (which they are now promising out by Q1), and at this point the DUO is still largely in prototype stage.

You can hear my full conversation with Callahan from the show floor below.

Meet the Duo, a portable water carafe with precision temperature control

Meet Tetra, A $299 Countertop Dishwasher That Finishes A Wash Cycle In Ten Minutes

The reason why the dishwasher is one of those everyday conveniences most of us don’t think about is because we don’t have to; after all, today’s dishwashers pretty much all come in the same size, use roughly the same amount of water, and all take about an hour or more to run through a wash cycle.

But here’s the problem with one-sized fits all machines: not every task – or dish load – is the same size. So, when I ran across a demo of the Tetra countertop dishwasher at CES Unveiled, I was intrigued.

The Tetra is small as dishwashers go. The total counter space it takes up is roughly equivalent to that of a toaster oven. It’s also, if I might say, pretty cool looking for a dishwasher. You can see what it looks like in the video below:

Why would one want a small form factor dishwasher? For one, traditional dishwashers are pretty wasteful. With the Tetra, the user simply pours in half a gallon of water inside and that is all it needs for a full wash cycle.

It’s also quick. My old KitchenAid usually takes an hour or more to rumble through a cycle, but the Tetra finishes a cycle in 10 minutes.

And to top it all off, the device also will act as a sous vide appliance.

One reason I like the idea of the Tetra is I often find my usage of certain dishes is out of sync with how we use our dishwasher.  Because it often takes my family a day and half to dirty up enough dishes run a load, I often find myself handwashing my favorite mug or Nutribullet glass when it’s time to make a smoothie. The Tetra is perfect for these type of quick wash cycles for go-to dishes. And for someone like a parent with a newborn who is constantly washing baby bottles, it would make even more sense.

The Tetra is from a company called Heatworks, which you may have heard of for their tankless electric water heaters. The company is announcing its third generation water heater at CES (available in February), and the Tetra is the company’s first home appliance.

And in case you’re wondering – you don’t need a Heatworks water heater to heat your water for the Tetra – it has a mini one built inside.

The Tetra is expected to ship by the end of this year.