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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

IFA

SCHOTT Debuts New Ceramic Cooktop Glass That Can Double as Full Color Video Display

Tired of boring black-glass cooktops?

How about a cooktop that provides video cooking guides, color images, and more? That’s the idea behind SCHOTT’s new CERAN Luminoir TFT (thin film transistor) display.

At last week’s IFA conference in Germany, SCHOTT announced a new TFT display technology that enabled a full-color touch screen to display high-fidelity video and images. This is a big deal for cooktop manufacturers, who, alongside their customers, typically embrace the sleek black aesthetics of glass-ceramic surfaces. However, using any integrated display would normally mean sacrificing the dark black display associated with high-end ceramic cooktops, as black glass tends to absorb light, making display integration challenging.

However, SCHOTT says they solved this issue by optimizing light and color transmission through the glass-ceramic substrate, enabling the integration of high-resolution TFT displays while maintaining a deep black appearance when the display is off. This allows for the “dead front” effect, which keeps the cooking surface looking clean and like a typical high-end cooktop when not in use, but enabling a multicolor display when activated.

You can see the SCHOTT CERAN Luminoir TFT on display in the video below:

SCHOTT CERAN Luminoir® TFT - “Ready for undiscovered possibilities?”

Could this mean the cooktop surface itself has entered that chat as the preferred video display in the kitchen? Maybe, but it’s early. Over the past decade, various appliance and system manufacturers have jockeyed to position their preferred platform as the primary video display of choice in the kitchen. There was Amazon with its digital assistants, GE Appliances with its video-enabled built-in microwave oven, and Samsung pushing its Family Hub fridge with its large digital displays in the door. However, no one has really pushed the cooktop, mostly because the dark-black ceramic surfaces did not make for very good digital displays.

At least until now. We’ll keep an eye on this space to see if any cooktop makers move to integrate this technology and push their ceramic cooktops to become multimedia hubs. At the very least, expect some appliance brands to use this technology to offer visually rich touch-screen user interfaces, and most likely some of these will be on display by this time next year at IFA.

IFA Smart Kitchen Roundup: Appliance Brands Try to Tap Into AI Zeitgeist With AI-Powered Food Recognition

This weekend at IFA, several big appliance brands used the show to tell the world that they are all in on AI, mainly through the integration of cameras into their ovens paired with software to enable personalized recipes and customized shopping lists.

Siemens showed off the iQ 700 oven has a built-in camera that recognizes over 80 different dishes and automatically adjusts to the ideal cooking settings. This feature allows users to place food, like a frozen pizza, in the oven and hit start for optimized cooking. The updated model offers more food recognition capabilities than previous versions and includes an optional steam function to achieve a crispy crust on baked goods.

Hisense debuted the Hi9 Series Oven, equipped with AI-powered InCamera technology for intelligent baking with over 140 pre-programmed recipes. The company also introduced a smart fridge in the Hisense Refrigerator PureFlat Smart Series, and its description sounds like they’ve been taking cues from Samsung and the Family Hub. The company described the fridge as “a home appliance control center” that “allows you to adjust temperature settings remotely through the ConnectLife app.”. The fridge also has AI-powered inventory tracking, though the company was light on details about how the tracking feature works.

Beko also let everyone know that they are trying to jam AI into as many things as possible, including their ovens. Like with HiSense and Siemens, they pointed to camera-assisted cooking in their ovens. From the release: “Beko brings AI-assisted camera technology to its Smart Home ovens, delivering a self-improving cooking experience for optimal results in the kitchen whatever the dish. With food recognition and cooking suggestions across more than 30 different food types, the new Beko Autonomous Cooking technology uses AI to finish cooking according to personalized browning levels.”

Ovens with cameras and food recognition aren’t exactly new, as we’ve been seeing this feature for the better part of a decade since June (RIP) debuted the technology. The appliance industry often displays a herd mentality, and clearly, the herd feels they’ve got to show off their AI chops, even if the technology is somewhat pedestrian at this point.

Electrolux Debuts Taste Assist AI on AEG Line

Not every new AI-feature introduction at IFA was tied to integrated cameras and image recognition. Electrolux introduced its AI Taste Assist feature on its AEG line of kitchen appliances. According to the announcement, AI Taste Assist will take recipes from the Internet, import them, and send cooking instructions to the oven, but not before it recommends ways to enhance and optimize the cook. In a demo on-stage by Electrolux at IFA, the company emphasized how the new feature was meant to overcome what they called the “cooking gap”, which they described as the limitations of existing recipes and the enhanced capabilities of modern cooking equipment. The feature that Electrolux primarily promoted to bridge this gap was steam cooking, a feature that was injected into a lasagna recipe in an on-stage demo of the Taste Assist feature by Christopher Duncan, Electrolux’s SVP of Taste for Europe.

One notable absence at Electrolux’s IFA new conference was GRO, the next-generation modular kitchen concept the company announced in June of 2022. All indications are that the Swedish appliance brand has not made any progress in commercializing GRO, probably partly due to the company’s struggles over the past couple of years. The company laid off approximately three thousand employees last year, and earlier this year, it saw the departure of its longtime CEO, Jonas Samuelson, as the company continued to struggle post-pandemic and in the fast of increased competition from Asian appliance brands.

SideChef Unveils AI Feature in App That Creates Step-by-Step Recipes From Photos of Food

SideChef recently introduced RecipeGen AI, a new beta feature that generates step-by-step recipes from a photo of any dish. Users can upload pictures of meals from restaurants or social media, and the app will provide a shoppable recipe based on the image.

From the release: “We are living in exciting times, where every inspiration can become a person’s reality,” says SideChef Founder & CEO, Kevin Yu. “At SideChef we’re excited to be the first to use AI to allow any home cook to make their food inspiration a reality for themselves and loved ones, with a single photo!

CNET writer Amanda Smith gave the app a test drive and came away with mixed feelings. While the app successfully identified many ingredients, it missed key components in some cases, such as sourdough focaccia and strawberry butter. It also occasionally added ingredients that weren’t in the dish, like bell peppers, leaving Smith feeling the accuracy was somewhat hit or miss.

Smith’s takeaway: Succes “depends on the recipe. It has a hard time with nuance and, like other AI tools, tends to make it up if it’s unsure. It’s a handy little app that could be used to inspire new ideas and ingredient concoctions or if you’re in a restaurant and don’t want to bother the waiter with dish details.”

Samsung Food Also Debuts AI-Powered Shopping Lists From Photos

SideChef isn’t the only smart kitchen company debuting photo-to-recipes/shopping lists powered by AI in their apps. At IFA last week, Samsung announced new AI-powered meal planning and food management features. The Vision AI feature now allows users to add ingredients to their Food List by simply taking a photo with their smartphone, expanding beyond the previous limitations of Samsung’s Family Hub smart fridge. This list can be used to suggest recipes, prioritize items nearing expiration, and automatically update after meals are cooked or ingredients are purchased.

Additionally, the company announced a new premium tier called Samsung Food+, a $7/month subscription service offers personalized weekly meal plans, tailored to users’ nutritional goals and dietary preferences, and tracks macronutrients and caloric intake. This premium tier also integrates more advanced AI functionality, allowing users to customize recipes and receive a full week of meal recommendations, helping reduce food waste and simplify grocery shopping by making the app a central hub for food management and meal preparation.

Midea Debuts First Countertop Appliances to Use Ki Wireless Power Standard

Seven years after the Wireless Power Consortium first started working on a standard for countertop kitchen appliances, Midea announced the first product that works with the Ki standard. According to a story in The Verge, Midea announced its Celestial Flex Series of products, which includes a blender, steamer, and kettle, at the IFA show in Berlin.

Midea, one of China’s largest appliance brands, hasn’t said when its Ki lineup will ship, pricing, or regions to which it will ship. It also has not indicated if they are working on a Ki-compliant cooktop, (though it wouldn’t matter much to customers since any Ki-compliant cooktop should work). However, they did announce a new all-in-one built-in oven called the Midea One that has a built-in air fryer and automated multi-step cooking function capabilities.

The announcement of the first products is a big milestone for any standard, and Ki is no exception. And while it’s good to see a major manufacturer commit to the standard, the better part of a decade is a pretty long time for a standard to finally make it to market, which is probably why—as we reported earlier this year—some companies have taken it upon themselves to build wireless power products that don’t use the standard.

It will be interesting to watch if Cloen or others who have attempted to build non-Ki-based wireless power kitchen products will now begin to embrace Ki. My guess is they will since proprietary technologies are an uphill battle, particularly when trying to convince retailers to jump on board.

Initial Ki products with integrated transmission coils are expected to be indication cooktops, but in the long term, WPC expects the technology to be installed under the counter on quartz, granite, and marble countertops.

SideChef Brings Guided Recipes to Haier Smart Fridge Lineup

Today at IFA in Berlin, SideChef and Haier announced a new partnership which will put SideChef’s guided recipes on all new Haier smart fridges released in the European market. The new feature will offer step-by-step cooking instructions and recommend recipes to owners of Haier smart fridges based on the current content of their fridge.

From the release:

Guided recipes are now at users’ fingertips, ensuring successful meal preparation every time. SideChef’s rich recipe content is curated from chefs and culinary professionals, unlocking unlimited meal potential while taking into consideration cuisine cravings, dietary restrictions, and general preferences.

This deal marks another step in the SideChef-Haier relationship, which has been growing steadily for over a year now. The two companies worked closely on development of the GE Kitchen Hub smart display and this past April they expanded their relationship by building an integration that enabled users to send cooking instructions and parameters to different GE appliances from within the SideChef app.

SideChef has in the past done deals with GE in the U.S. and Electrolux is Asia. Now, with the addition of Haier in Europe, SideChef will continue to expand its geographic-specific relationships in the appliance space as it helps Haier build a strong offering in localized language content (such as French and German).

“As Haier China expands its product line out further geographically, we are working with them to have products that are localized through content,” SideChef CEO Kevin Yu told me over the phone. “Recipes are a huge driver for them and others.”

The SideChef content will make its way to all of Haier Europe’s new smart fridges with displays later this year. While the initial version of these guided recipes won’t have the ability to drive and interact with other Haier appliances (such as with the GE implementation in the U.S.), Yu didn’t rule it out from future versions.

And while today’s news is based on the company’s new partnership with a major appliance brand, Yu told me that it’s not just hardware companies he’s talking to nowadays.  Meetings with big food and appliance brands are taking up as much or more of his calendar space as they all have gotten serious about digitization in the face of an ever-growing threat from Amazon. Yu said it started with the Amazon acquisition of Whole Foods and momentum has only grown since that time.

“We’re seeing a lot of urgency from the food guys,” he said.

Touchscreens, Guided Cooking and Electromagnetic Waves Take Center Stage at IFA Berlin

Connected kitchens. This was the top trend in kitchen appliance technology at IFA 2018 last month. All the big brands in the kitchen space were either announcing partnerships, or discussing them. Electrolux and AEG were on hand to show off their smart cooktops and connected ovens and their partnership with Google Assistant. Miele expanded on their Dialog oven range with the MChef meal delivery service. LG was also there to launch their kitchen range, including their Signature Kitchen Suite (SKS), as well as coin a new phrase — Technicureans!

Technicureans is what LG is calling their potential SKS customers. Technicureans, according to them, are ‘a new generation of forward-thinking cooks, combining their passion for food with their appreciation of innovation’. I thought they were called ‘early adopters’, the beloved description of the technology startup world, but I like the premise. Whether the name, which is trademarked, will catch on I can’t say, but I like the idea.

LG launched this product to Europe in grand fashion. They had a stand alone pod outside in the Sommergarten at IFA, filled with their own brand of smart appliances, accompanied by beautiful kitchen furniture by Valcucine, who partnered with them. What I found inside was incredibly impressive. Three kitchens, packed full of connected appliances. Touch controls on ovens with built-in recipes and beautiful interfaces.

LG demonstrated their new touch screen kitchen interface, which works with all their appliances, and is powered by Google Assistant and the Innit platform. Users can select a recipe on Innit using the smart display, which uses wi-fi to talk to the oven. The display will also walk the user through each step, allowing the user to bring up an instructional video if necessary.

This isn’t exclusive to LG and Smart Kitchen Suite, however. Google has already announced three other smart displays with Sony, Lenovo, and JBL, so we can expect these to appear on the market very soon.

AEG, who took centre stage at IFA instead of their parent company Electrolux, launched their new smart SenseCook cooktops with videos and demonstrations on how it all works. The first two cooktops in the range have specific jobs. SenseFry, which provides an automatically adaptable temperature for pan frying, and SenseBoil, which constantly monitors water temperature, adjusting where necessary to prevent a pan boiling over. If consumers opt for the SensePro cooktop, which is the top model, they get both the fry and boil features, as well as a battery-less, wireless temperature probe which constantly reads the internal temperature of the food, regulating temperatures to keep cooking on the right track. It also featured a touchscreen control panel, which is home to recipes and temperature controls. I really like this product. They are covering off a few of the main pitfalls of cooking. Anything that makes it simpler to get great results has my approval.

As for Electrolux, their main kitchen focus was on their connected ovens, with a demonstration room dedicated to their partnership with Google. The closed room allowed them to demonstrate how you can use their ovens with voice control to navigate through the whole cooking cycle. They also showed off the oven’s built-in camera, and it’s ability to share to social media. Innit’s partnerships also extend beyond Electrolux and AEG, with GE, Bosch, Beko and LG currently tied up, and more in the pipeline. Consumers will be able to connect with a whole host of connected ovens and appliances through this app, and even order their groceries through it.

Miele also had its Dialog oven, which now adds electromagnetic waves (like a microwave) to the existing cooking functions. Essentially, the waves read the texture and surface of the food, adjusting the cooking mode and temperature accordingly. It works alongside the fan and the heat in the oven cavity for the best results possible. Although the technology is similar to that of a microwave, the Dialog oven uses the technology in a less aggressive way, and doesn’t blast food like a microwave.

Miele also announced their partnership with MChef, a meal delivery startup out of their native Germany. The premise is that you order your food by 12:30pm, and it’s all delivered the next day, ready to work with the recipe app and the oven. The ingredients actually come prepared on porcelain plates. Consumers merely remove the wrapping, and tell the app what they’re cooking. That’s it! This is the way to get the most out of your Dialog oven, although it will no doubt come at a price. Miele are launching this in select regions in Germany, before rolling out nationwide. Although Miele haven’t released pricing for their MChef service, already the oven is priced way above these countertop options, and also has the need to be built-in.

The thing I had hoped to see was more US startups making a play for Europe. There’s some great technology coming out of the US, as always, and the European market is ready for it all. The likes of Anova and ChefSteps have their products available on Amazon, but I want more from them. I want to see these products taking root in the department stores, electrical and specialist cooking stores that are so popular in Europe. Meal service is gaining popularity in the UK too, so the likes of Nomiku, Suvie and Tovala could really be making it work. I hope to see more products like this at IFA in the future. Connected kitchens are growing with real force in Europe, and their presence across the board at IFA 2018 highlights that. There was so much attention on them, and far less on the traditional kitchen appliances. It spells it out perfectly. Now is the time to get connected in the kitchen.

Weekly Spoon: Kitchen Projection Interfaces, Amazon Drone Patent & Innit Nabs Arçelik

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If you go to lots of trade shows like me, you know it takes time for innovation to make its way from the show floor into our living rooms.

We’ve all seen this with technologies like virtual reality and 3D food printing; only after years of development and iteration cycles do we get to the point where a product is ready for prime time.

And then there are technologies like projection interfaces that – up until now at least – seem like they’re stuck in development stasis. The idea of a projectable, anywhere surface interface has been discussed for close to a decade in the research and academic community and started showing up on trade show floors about five years ago. Despite this, the concept never seemed to go beyond an occasional product demo.

So last year I started to wonder why exactly the technology hadn’t reached consumers yet. After all, with the likes of Whirlpool, IKEA, and Bosch showing off jaw-dropping demos, it only made sense this technology would find its way to market at some point.

While there’s no clear answer, I narrowed it down to a couple of factors. First, the reality is the technology still needed some refinement to make it both consumer-ready and affordable. Second, appliance vendors often wait for big-tech to take the first leap, and from what I could tell none of the big-tech 5 (Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon) seemed particularly active with projection interfaces.

But now, it looks like one big company is committing to bringing a projection interface to market. BSH Appliances showed off a new product concept called PAI at IFA in Berlin this past week. PAI is a movable projector interface that is designed to go on a countertop in a kitchen.

I’m excited that BSH looks to be serious about bringing PAI to market. While some see voice as the dominant user interface of the future, abysmal usage rates of Alexa skills for commerce have shown us that voice in itself isn’t enough.  Consumers are visual, and most things we do in the kitchen are multimodal. Because of this, I believe the dynamic projection interface could a vibrant area in UI development over the next decade.

BSH Appliances wasn’t the only one to make news at IFA last week. Sharp showed up in Berlin with a fridge that featured a built-in vacuum sealer, prompting Chris Albrecht to wonder what exactly types of features he would want in his next fridge.

Smart kitchen platform startup Innit had a strong showing at IFA, popping up in a number appliance OEM booths, including that of a new partner in Arçelik.  The Turkish appliance conglomerate behind the Beko and Grundig brands showed off an Innit integration to power guided cooking as part of its HomeWhiz smart home platform.

It wasn’t all IFA this week. This week the Spoon scooped yet another Amazon patent in which the Seattle tech giant shows an innovative new method for delivery drones to generate power while in transit by harnessing both wind and kinetic energy.
After the news of a $30 million funding round for Farmer’s Fridge, I’m looking forward to a panel at Smart Kitchen Summit on the future of lunch. We’ll be discussing how new technologies, business models and delivery formats are all colliding to change what we eat every day, including at work.  You can read Chris’s piece on Farmer’s Fridge, a startup we’ve been covering for the past year.

Speaking of Smart Kitchen Summit, we’re less than five weeks away from our flagship show exploring the future of food and cooking. We have an amazing program planned, and not only will we have executives from big appliance brands like Whirlpool, GE and more, but we’ll also have startups from the smart kitchen, food robotics, restaurant tech, retail and more to discuss and showcase how each of these industries are changing to disrupt the consumer meal journey.  Make sure to get your tickets now and use the discount code NEWSLETTER (You can also use this link which has the code already applied).

That’s it for now. Have a great rest of the week.

Mike

P.S. Make sure to tune into this weekend’s episode of the Smart Kitchen Show podcast, where I have a great conversation with the CEO of the startup behind what is arguably the most successful consumer food robot ever made. You won’t want to miss it!

In the 09/06/2018 edition:

Ordermark Raises $9.5 Million for its Online Order Management Tools

By Chris Albrecht on Sep 06, 2018 10:23 am
Ordermark, a startup that helps restaurants unify and organize online orders, today announced that it has closed a $9.5 million Series A led by Nosara Capital. This brings the total amount raised by the company to $12.6 million.

Nima Peanut Sensor Now Available, Gluten Sensor Selling at Select CVS Stores

By Chris Albrecht on Sep 06, 2018 06:00 am
It’s back-to-school time, which means my son is once again eating lunches in a cafeteria. I doubt his school is unique, but it actually has separate tables for kids who bring in peanut butter sandwiches.

With its own Grocery Delivery Service, Walmart Grabs More Data

By Chris Albrecht on Sep 05, 2018 04:00 pm
Walmart is leaving no stone unturned when it comes to getting you your groceries. As of today, that includes testing out its own delivery service (h/t Food Dive). The retailing giant announced a pilot program for its new last-mile delivery service, dubbed Spark Delivery, which will deliver groceries directly to customers’ front door.

For Goodr’s Jasmine Crowe, Blockchain Is a Key Piece to the Food Waste Puzzle

By Catherine Lamb on Sep 05, 2018 02:00 pm
Food waste is generating quite a lot of interest as of late; but one buzzword that might give “food waste” a run for its money is blockchain.

Innit Adds Arçelik To Growing List of Appliance Partners

By Michael Wolf on Sep 05, 2018 12:00 pm
The smart kitchen was everywhere this year at IFA, Europe’s big appliance and tech expo, and one company that seemed to be on everyone’s dance card was Innit.

Farmer’s Fridge Stocks up with $30M

By Chris Albrecht on Sep 05, 2018 10:54 am
Farmer’s Fridge, the company which makes vending machines that dispense healthy meals such as salads and protein bowls, today announced that it has raised a new $30 million round of funding led by Innovation Endeavors. This brings the total amount raised by the company to $40 million.

Seltzer? Sous Vide? Smart Apps? What Cool Things do you Want in a Fridge?

By Chris Albrecht on Sep 05, 2018 07:33 am
For those old enough to remember, there is an episode from season two of The Simpsons where Homer designs a car for the average American. The result, as you can imagine was a hodge-podge monstrosity that featured bubble domes, three horns, shag carpeting and cost $82,000.

Bear Flag Robotics Raises $3.5 Million for Autonomous Tractor Tech

By Chris Albrecht on Sep 04, 2018 10:00 am
The common refrain from robotics companies is that they help with manual, repetitive tasks. And when you run a farm, there are plenty of manual, repetitive tasks, and Bear Flag Robotics raised $3.5 million seed funding right before the holiday weekend to help agricultural workers out with them.

Amazon Patent Points to In-Flight Recharging For Delivery Drones

By Michael Wolf on Sep 04, 2018 06:54 am
Ever since Jeff Bezos teased the idea of drone deliveries on 60 Minutes in 2013, the tech world has been abuzz with the idea. At the time Bezos said that the reality of drone deliveries wasn’t there yet, but he thought it just might be in 4-5 years.

FoodPlus Sells Surplus Food (in Slovenia) so it Doesn’t go to Waste

By Catherine Lamb on Sep 04, 2018 06:00 am
Based in Slovenia, FoodPlus began in 2015 when co-founder Dalibor Matijevic began searching for a way to cut down on food waste by redistributing surplus food. He developed a B2B platform for companies to buy and sell extra food at a super low cost — creating a new revenue stream and keeping food out of landfills.

Innit Adds Arçelik To Growing List of Appliance Partners

The smart kitchen was everywhere this year at IFA, Europe’s big appliance and tech expo, and one company that seemed to be on everyone’s dance card was Innit.

Not only was the company and its smart kitchen platform showing up in the booths of Google, LG, BSH Appliances, and Electrolux, but it also made an appearance with a new partner in Arçelik, the Turkish product conglomerate behind appliance brands Beko and Grundig.

The partnership incorporates Innit’s guided cooking technology and a library of 10 thousand recipes into Arçelik’s Homewhiz smart home platform. Homewhiz, which is akin to BSH Appliances Home Connect, serves as an underlying smart home connectivity platform. With this new partnership, Innit brings HomeWhiz firmly into the kitchen and cooking experience by synchronizing an Innit guide cook with Grundig and Beko connected appliances, sending cooking parameters to the appliances as the user walks through a recipe.

While neither Arçelik or Innit made any announcements in English about the partnership, you can find some in other languages. A Google translated excerpt:

HomeWhiz enables users to control and monitor all home appliances through smart phones like your phone, tablet, or TV. Grundig HomeWhiz can help in deciding on the preparation to be cooked using the cognitive kitchen experience. Using voice control, users can ask for advice on recipes based on the ingredients available in the refrigerator.

For those who want to try something new, Grundig’s partnership with Innit allows HomeWhiz users to access over 10,000 recipes along with step-by-step video tutorials for customized meals according to their preferences.

The expanded presence of Innit at IFA culminates what has been an aggressive push into the European continent that started with the Electrolux partnership announced in April. Before that, the company announced a BSH Appliances Home Connect and LG partnerships at CES, and they were showing with both brands in Berlin.

The LG partnership is interesting in that it ties the Innit platform into LG’s new smart display with Google Assistant to enable guided cooking on LG’s Signature Kitchen Suite ovens. Innit first teased the integration with Google Assistant at CES (with a Tyler Florence demo, no less) and, as of now, Innit is the only multi-modal voice/video guided cooking integration on the forthcoming Google smart displays which are expected to start shipping this month.

Will BSH’s PAI Usher In The Era of the Kitchen Projection Interface?

The idea of using your countertop as a touchscreen interface has been something big tech and kitchen appliance makers have been playing around with for much of the past decade.

First there was Whirlpool’s attempt in 2014:

IKEA served up the idea for its Kitchen 2025 concept a year later:

IKEA Concept Kitchen 2025

And Bosch has been showing off things like this coffee robot with a projection interface for a few years:

Spotted at #ces2017: coffee robot at the @Bosch booth.

A post shared by Michael Wolf (@michaelawolf) on

And this year it looks like the large German appliance conglomerate, BSH Appliances (the company behind the Bosch, Thermador and Gaggenau appliance brands, to name a few), is showing off what looks to be a more evolved version of the projection interface in PAI at IFA in Berlin.

PAI, which stands for ‘Projection and Interaction’, is a system that projects an image onto a flat surface to create a virtual interactive interface for the kitchen.  While the projector incorporates a camera, a speaker, a microphone, two USB ports, WiFi and Bluetooth antennas, the key technology here is a 3D sensor that detects minute movements of fingers on the surface.

According to project manager Markus Helminger, the PAI 3D sensor powers a projection interface that can “be perfectly operated even with dirty fingers and occupies no space on the work surface, so that consumers have enough space for cooking or baking.”

While other efforts at projection interfaces at trade shows have largely been to show off the concept with no concrete plans for commercialization, this time things look different with PAI. According to a German language post about PAI by on the BSH Kitchen Stories blog, they plan on rolling out PAI in February 2019 in China. While there’s no indication as to when we might see the technology in Europe or the US, my guess is we could see the technology in product rolled out in Europe as early as next year.

You can see a demo of the PAI interface (in German) below courtesy of Computer Bild TV:

Bosch PAI: Projektor für die Küche vorgestellt!

The story behind PAI is an interesting one. The technology spun out of development work Bosch was doing in ventilation. According a company spokesperson, researchers were looking to improve the user experience for cooks and “the developers wanted to create an assistance function for an extractor hood that would make it possible to project images from the hood and display recipes on the work surface. In an extensive UX study carried out by Bosch, this idea went down so well that the project was actually carried out.”

According to the company, consumer testers almost universally said they use tablet or smartphone when cooking or baking, but they didn’t like giving up the counter space to these devices required and, perhaps more importantly, they worried touching these devices with dirty hands. As the company worked on the concept more, they eventually decided to not incorporate it into a vent hood but to make the PAI a standalone projection system that allowed the consumer to place it where they desired on the counter.

The company has also integrated the PAI with its Kitchen Stories guided cooking system and its Home Connect platform, which opens up some intriguing possibilities. It’s not hard to envision a Kitchen Stories guided cook experience that shows step-by-step instructions projected onto the kitchen counter. With Home Connect, PAI could also project virtual start buttons, timers and other ways for the consumer to interact with their appliances.

With BSH Appliances – one of the world’s biggest appliance companies – taking projection interfaces seriously, my guess is we’ll likely see other big appliance brands push forward with their own projection interface commercialization efforts in the coming year and we’ll most likely see some of these teased at CES in Las Vegas next January.

AEG Rolling Out Smart Induction Cooktop and Wireless Sensor Probe At IFA

Electrolux’s AEG brand is rolling out a new smart cooking system in the form of a new induction cooktop (hob) with a wireless sensor probe at IFA next week.

The new AEG SenseCook system, which was first uncovered by design site Yanko, features what the company claims to be the first wireless and battery-less sensor probe for an induction cooktop. The SenseCook induction cooktop gets realtime temperature reading from the sensor probe and automatically adjusts temperature of the heating surface.

It’s an interesting move by Electrolux in that it’s the first time the European appliance giant is getting into smart surface cooking. The company’s early smart kitchen efforts (such as its partnership with Innit) have centered around cavity/oven cooking, but this marks the first effort to integrate smart cooking technology into the company’s induction cooktops.

The Electrolux/AEG news follows an announcement by Hestan Cue’s parent company, Meyer, in January at the Kitchen and Bath show of a new appliance range with built-in smart surface cooking. The Hestan smart appliance line and the AEG SenseCook system are a natural evolution from first generation smart cooking systems like that of the Hestan Cue, FirstBuild’s Paragon and the Cucianale that feature portable countertop induction burners. Longer term, I expect most appliance brands will build smart cooking intelligence into their larger cooktop appliances and AEG and Hestan are early indicators of that trend.

With IFA next week, I expect we’ll see a flurry of smart cooking news over the next few days, so stay tuned to the Spoon as we’ll be tracking all of it.

Miele To Launch Food Delivery Service At IFA

At last year’s IFA, German appliance maker Miele made news by announcing the first consumer oven to incorporate solid state cooking in the Dialog.

Their follow up act? Getting into food delivery business.

According to a preview announcement released by Miele, the company is partnering up with a German startup called MChef to deliver meals to customers with the Dialog oven.

From the announcement:

Orders received online by 12.30 h will be delivered the next day, 365 days a year. Up to six dishes can be prepared in a dialog oven simultaneously. The programme with the correct settings is launched direct from the MChef app. The average cooking time is 20 minutes.

It’s an interesting move for the German kitchen giant. While other smaller connected kitchen startups like Tovala, Suvie and Nomiku have jumped into the food delivery business to add a recurring revenue stream on top of their hardware products, established appliance makers have been slower to move into food delivery.

Part of the reason for the lack of offerings from bigger players is likely very simple: food delivery is hard. The week’s news about Chef’d shutting down is not only a testament to this fact, but it also shows the perils of partnering with third parties. One of the major fallouts of the Chef’d shut-down was that it left companies like Nestle, Innit and Brava scrambling to figure out their food delivery strategies with the closure of the white label meal kit startup.

While the details of Miele’s partnership with MChef are still vague, it sounds like the appliance maker is investing resources in the the food delivery startup to help it with the broader rollout of the offering:

Now, a startup called MChef, supported by Miele, is set to deliver the matching haute cuisine to homes around the country. Exquisite plated dishes or entire three-course menus wait to be ordered. When they arrive on the customer’s doorstep, the ingredients are already appealingly arranged on elegant porcelain plates – ready to be cooked to perfection in a dialog oven.

The service, which will formally be announced at IFA, will first roll out in the North Rhine-Westphalia region of Germany in September and will be rolled out nationwide early next year.

The IFA 2017 Smart Refrigerator Roundup

Fridges are sexy again.

Ok, so maybe they weren’t ever sexy in the first place, but if you were at IFA this past week, you would have seen a host of fridges with interactive touchscreens, image recognition software, internal cams and even the ability to move around the home and deliver a frosty one.

If this year’s CES and IFA are any indications, the fridge is fast becoming the focal point for many appliance makers, who are jumping at the opportunity to remake their product with advanced hardware and software that transform their fridges into the smart kitchen – and smart home – hubs.

Let’s take a quick look at some of the fridges that were on display at IFA:

Haier Link Cook Series

Haier showed off their Link Cook series of smart refrigerators, a new line of products that looks similar in feature set to the Samsung Family Hub refrigerator.

Haier smart fridge "Link Cook" @IFA 2017

The Link Cook series of fridges is part of a broader lineup from Haier. According to Ashlee Clark Thompson at CNET, the Link Cook is part of “Haier’s U+ Smart Home Platform, which connects the Link Cook Series to a Haier oven and range hood. According to Haier, you’ll be able to select a recipe on the refrigerator, automatically send the heating instructions to the oven and view the recipe on a small screen on the range hood.”

At this point, Haier is vague on timing and pricing. It will be interesting to see is if Haier’s new fridge eventually enters the US market under the GE brand.

Samsung’s Family Hub

Samsung tends to make its biggest news at CES, but it had a nice update on some new features and partner integrations for its flagship smart fridge at IFA.

While the company has had voice commands (both Alexa and its voice assistant, Bixby), they announced expanded voice command features at IFA. From the press release: “Family Hub’s voice capabilities provide a new way to interact with the refrigerator. Users can ask for the time and weather updates, search the internet, read news articles, play music and radio, add items to their shopping list, and even view inside of the refrigerator without opening the door.”

It also became more evident that Samsung sees their Family Hub as the central command center for the smart home. They teased this at CES and at the Smart Kitchen event at Samsung’s NYC location in June, but now users can use the Samsung Connect smart home features from the fridge. Samsung Connect, based on the SmartThings platform (which Samsung acquired a few years ago), is now built into the fridge.

Panasonic’s Mobile Fridge

Panasonic turned in one of the most intriguing showings of IFA as far as future kitchen tech is concerned, showing off an AI-powered kitchen assistant and a combo microwave-steam oven, but the show stealer was their moveable fridge named “Cool.”  Cool utilizes similar technology employed by any number of robot vacuums in that it has internal sensors that measure the distance between itself and obstacles in its way like, say, a kitchen island, and continuously develops a map and improves its understanding of the overall home layout as moves around.

Cool, which is about the size of a dormitory fridge, does not currently have a price or ship date.

Smarter/Liebherr

The smart fridge showing at IFA wasn’t all touch screens and robot fridges. Smarter, the smart kitchen appliance startup from the UK founded by Dragon Den wunderkind Christian Lane and his wife Isabella, showed off production models of the smart fridge cam is debuted last year at IFA and also had a major partner announcement. The company announced that their FridgeCam smart fridge camera would ship with every smart refrigerator from German industrial conglomerate Liebherr, the biggest privately held manufacturer of refrigerators in the EU (and also the inventor of the tower crane).  The deal is a good one for Smarter. While the announcement did not break out what percentage of total volume from the German manufacturer is smart, the company ships an estimated 2 million fridges per year.

The Rise of the Smart Fridge

In many ways, this focus on the fridge by big appliance manufacturer makes sense. In many homes, the fridge is the central focal point of the kitchen, where pictures, school assignments, and shopping lists go. Why not digitize that?

The fridge is also where the bulk of our fresh food is stored, all of which have a limited lifespan. Smarter fridges could help us manage this inventory and make sure we waste less (and keep us from buying redundant food that will inevitably be wasted).

Lastly, no platform really dominates the kitchen screen, but with the rise of guided cooking, the growing popularity of food and cooking content, and more and smarter appliances to manage, the front of the fridge makes sense for that big attractive touchscreen.

And of course, there are those of us there are who have long dreamed of a day when a robot assistant could bring us a beer. Just who could have predicted that robot would also be a fridge?