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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

microwave

Amazon Issued Patent For System That Coordinates Microwave Oven With Wi-Fi Network Traffic

Back when the government first set aside radio spectrum real estate for home and industrial use in 1947, one of the very first applications they had in mind was the microwave oven. Only the then nascent cooking technology, which operates within the 2.4 GHz radio band, wouldn’t be using the newly reserved spectrum to send communication signals over the air, but would instead be creating electromagnetic radiation to heat food.

Three quarters of a century later microwave ovens are still heating our food, only nowadays their widespread use congests the same ISM bands (Industrial, Scientific and Medical) that are now widely used for digital communication networks such as those based on Wi-Fi. Most of the time it’s not a problem, at least until someone gets hungry and zaps a snack in the microwave. When that happens, the device’s electromagnetic radiation can disrupt the quality of a Wi-Fi network operating in the 2.4 GHz frequency band.*

In other words, heating up Hot Pockets usually results in dropped data packets.

Most of us tolerate the problem because we don’t really think about it. Not Amazon. This week the company was issued US patent number 10,477,585 for a system that coordinates the heating element of the microwave (the magnetron) with the home’s Wi-Fi network.

How does it work? Basically by employing a system where the microwave oven and Wi-Fi network coordinate network traffic around the magnetron’s on-off cycle.

From the patent:  the “wireless communication device (e.g., the microwave oven itself, a speech interface device in the environment of the microwave oven, etc.) may determine if the magnetron of the microwave oven is operating, and, if the magnetron is operating, a coordination mechanism can be implemented to send data wirelessly in the environment during the magnetron’s off period, and to cease sending the data in the environment during the magnetron’s on period.”

So why would Amazon care about coordinating our microwave ovens with local digital communication traffic? Maybe in part to make sure the company’s tens of millions of Wi-Fi devices in our homes in the form of Alexa-powered Echos and Ring doorbells work well together. The company also has its own microwave oven product (as well as a new multifunction smart oven), so it’s not too much of a stretch to see the company implementing this technology in its own products as a potential differentiator.

In the end, it’s hard to say whether Amazon will ever even put this patent to use. The company is a prolific researcher and patent filer, and while the bulk of its patents have to do with things like cloud computing, drones and artificial intelligence, every now and then one of their patents is of a more domestic nature. But, like with the Seattle giant’s other patents like the electronic nose in a refrigerator or a smart garden, it sure is fun to speculate.

*Sure, network nerds will note that many Wi-Fi networks nowadays operate in a higher, less-cluttered frequency in the 5GHz radio band, but most Wi-Fi gear is dual-mode and still operate periodically in the 2.4 GHz band. 

BSH Appliances Patents Camera-Enabled Microwave Oven

While microwave ovens still can’t be turned into cameras, it turns out cameras may be making their way inside of microwave ovens.

That’s because BSH Appliances recently was issued a patent for just that: a microwave oven with a camera for observing food inside the cooking chamber.

The patent, issued last week, describes a cooking system that puts a camera behind a glass panel (for shielding from food splatter) and a metal shielding plate perforated with small holes.

A camera captures images through a perforated shielding plate

The camera, which is attached to the mesh metal shielding plate, is able to capture images through a hole or group of holes while still staying safe from microwave radiation.

The patent also describes how the system could connect the camera to an LCD or LED screen on the front of the cooking appliance for viewing what is inside or to a wireless network for remote viewing on a mobile device.

While some may ask whether a camera-powered microwave is even necessary (who wants to watch a Hot Pocket get hot after all?), the reality is the camera acts as a sensor which could enable AI-powered cooking applications such as real-time precision heat adjustment.  Companies like Markov are building next-generation microwave ovens with RF steering capabilities that leverage an infrared camera, and Brava has built an oven with a camera to dynamically adjust a cooking session.

And who knows, with Amazon now heating up the microwave market, what’s to keep the tech giant from adding a bit of its machine vision magic to generation two?

While the idea of smart ovens with cameras inside are not new, a consumer microwave oven with a camera has not, to our knowledge, made its way to market.  With BSH Appliances figuring out a way to shield a built-in camera from radiation, you have to wonder if we’ll see a camera-enabled Bosch microwave soon.

Podcast: Let’s Talk About That Alexa-Powered Microwave

In this special episode of the Smart Kitchen Show, Chris Albrecht and I catch up with our good friend Stacey Higginbotham of the IoT Podcast to talk about the big Amazon Alexa devices event in Seattle today.

Stacey was on hand as Amazon unveiled a slate of new devices, including an Alexa powered microwave and the second generation Echo Show, so listen in as we discuss what it all means for Amazon and the smart home market.

You can listen to the podcast by clicking play below, downloading it to your machine or subscribing in Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast player.

Amazon’s Small $60 Microwave Could Actually be a Big Deal

As rumored, Amazon today announced its own brand of microwave with Alexa voice control built right in. The AmazonBasics Microwave will cost a measly $60 and shows how the company will use voice to better understand customers (and sell to them), as well as stave off smart assistant competitors from encroaching on the kitchen.

The microwave is on the small end, with 0.7 cubic foot cavity, has only 700 Watts of power, and features an Alexa logo button on the touchpad. I was a bit of a negative Nancy when I heard about an Alexa-powered microwave, but am ready to eat a bit of crow if this works as promised. From the press announcement:

With AmazonBasics Microwave, ask Alexa to reheat, defrost, or microwave for your desired cook time and power level. Plus, use a variety of quick-cook voice presets such as, “Alexa, microwave two potatoes” or “Alexa, reheat a cup of coffee” and the AmazonBasics Microwave takes care of the rest. Since Alexa is always getting smarter, new quick-cook voice presets will be added regularly.

What it also does is have users voluntarily tell Amazon what food they are microwaving, when they microwave and how often. As pre-sets are added, Amazon will have an even more granular understanding of what we are cooking, and will most likely notify users of specials and sales happening at Amazon Fresh or a Whole Foods nearby.

The Amazon microwave seems to stick it a little to the recently released GE Alexa Microwave with scan-to-cook technology. Depending on the pre-sets that are added, it removes the scan step (which requires using your phone) and makes cooking that much faster. It also allows for pre-set cooking of items that don’t have barcodes (see: potato).

The Amazon microwave also connects with a nearby Alexa for other voice commands. Press the Alexa button on the microwave and a paired Echo device wakes up to listen for a command like “two minutes and thirty seconds on medium” and the microwave will do just that (no need to say “Alexa” or “microwave”). While I haven’t seen it in action, this seems like more work than pressing 2, 3, 0, especially given the number of times Alexa mishears me.

There is also Dash Replenishment built into the Amazon Microwave that will re-order, ummmm, popcorn, when you… run out of popcorn. And that’s it for now. I guess. Huh. OK. To be fair, that re-order functionality will assuredly get more robust and add more microwaveable items to be replenished. But still, it seems like an add-on as we’ll already be telling the microwave what we are cooking. And if we order a four pack of Hot Pockets from Amazon, and we cook three of them, it will know I need more. Ideally.

As the company states in the press release, its new microwave is also a way for Amazon to show how other appliance makers can use the new Amazon Connect Kit to create smart devices. By getting appliance manufactures on to the Alexa platform, Amazon can better box out rival Google in the kitchen and slurp up all that data for itself.

In the end, the Amazon Microwave is a small device that actually could have big implications for the kitchen. We’ll get one in November and tell you how it works in real life.

Report: Amazon to Release an Alexa Microwave?

According to a CNBC report, Amazon plans on releasing at least eight new Alexa powered devices by the end of year, including a microwave oven.

If true, it would mark a turn in Amazon’s strategy and move the company further up the stack and into creating a more end-to-end hardware solution. In addition to embedding Alexa into everyone else’s appliance, it would start making its own.

CNBC writes that this would be Amazon’s first move into home appliances. While it would be the first one to actually hit the market if true, we know that Amazon has at least been thinking about its own smart refrigerator. So the company making its own microwave isn’t that much of a stretch.

Amazon has made similar vertically-stacked hardware plays over the past year with the acquisition of Blink’s connected cameras and Ring, which makes a smart doorbell.

Without any more information, it’s hard to tell whether an Alexa powered microwave would be a good thing for consumers. GE recently came out with an Alexa-enabled microwave that lets you control it with your voice. But microwaves are pretty surgical appliances. You set the time to cook, usually for short bursts numbering in seconds and minutes, and the device shuts itself off afterwards. I don’t see a lot of need to bark orders at it.

What an Alexa-powered microwave would do, however, is start to shut Google and its voice assistant out of your smart home equation. If Amazon can sell you a cheap enough microwave through its massive retail platform, it gains a foothold into your kitchen that Google can’t get to. And if the Alexa microwave has the same scan-to-cook technology as the GE microwave, Amazon would know what you’re cooking and when, and oh hey! Why don’t we have Whole Foods deliver that frozen meal to you as well. It’s not a big leap in logic to think if an Alexa microwave sold well, it could expand into more Alexa appliances that all talk to each other (and you) but not to Google — denying the search giant all that juicy user data.

In addition to the microwave, Amazon is supposedly working on an amplifier, a receiver, a subwoofer and an “in-car gadget.”

Buttermilk Co’s Microwaveable Indian Meals Merge Authenticity and Convenience

Founder Mitra Raman got the idea for Buttermilk Co. because of a craving for rasan: a tomato-y South Indian stew and her favorite food. Raman’s mother gave her the ingredients in a bag — all Raman had to do was add water and boil. The results were so good that Raman, who was working as a software engineer at Amazon at the time, decided to launch a company which sold ready-to-eat South Indian meals that tasted good and cooked in a flash.

In March 2017, she did just that. Buttermilk’s vegetarian packaged meals are made with fresh ingredients in a shared kitchen space in Seattle’s International District and shipped nationwide in refrigerated boxes. (As of now, their food is only available online.) Once delivered, the meals can be stored in the fridge for 5-7 days or frozen for up to 3 months. When you’re ready to eat, just add water and microwave for 5 minutes, and you’ve got a piping hot bowl of rasan or chana masala. 

Buttermilk just might have come along at the right time. Buttermilk’s single-serving pouches, which average around $5 each, are perfect for young-ish folks who live alone and spend too much time in the office to worry about grocery shopping or — God forbid — cooking, but who don’t like the idea of ordering delivery every night. It’s also smack-dab in the middle of two large trends in millennial dining: “authentic” ethnic food, and convenience/instant gratification.

Though the dishes are derived from actual South Indian recipes, Rasan said that she works hard to make sure all of Buttermilk’s dishes are approachable to all consumers — not just those who grew up eating them.

To increase their appeal to an audience who might just be dipping their toe into South Indian cuisine, Buttermilk has a few themed starter packs as easy entry points. For example, the 5-pack “I Can’t Do Spicy” combo ($23.50) is meant to dispel the myths that all Indian food is searingly hot. There are also packs geared towards travelers constantly greeted with an empty fridge, and those who want to expand their Indian food experience beyond curry.

On the other side, there’s also the homesickness angle: which is what prompted Raman to start Buttermilk in the first place. Indian food is pretty complex to prepare, requiring a good bit of time and a well-stocked spice drawer. Not everyone has the time/desire/know-how to make a giant pot of sambar, even with the guidance of a meal kit. And for South Indians who have grown up eating homemade khichdi and daal, the offerings from the local Indian joint might not sate their cravings for food like their mom used to make.

Buttermilk solves all of these issues with a speedy cook time and low price point, making them faster and cheaper than ordering delivery (until UberEats comes out with those drones, at least). All of the meals are also vegetarian, which capitalizes off of the recent boom in demand for plant-based foods.

I had a chance to sample some of Buttermilk’s upma (a wheat-based porridge) at a Seattle Made’s Food and Beverage event this June and thought it was delicious: lightly spiced, fluffy, and different than anything I’d ever tasted. I did not grow up eating South Indian food, but I found myself passing by their sample table another time to snag one more taste. It was delicious and something I would never make myself, but I found myself thinking about the dish for days afterwards. I could totally see myself stocking my office fridge with a few packets for lunch, or keeping them in the freezer to replace my typical emergency meal of a frozen burrito.

As of now, Raman is Buttermilk’s only full-time employee. She work with recipe curators and has a few part-time employees to help with cooking, packaging, and shipping. Over the next few weeks, they’re looking to hire a food scientist to work on making their dishes healthier (another trend!) while preserving their taste. Her company was also accepted into the Y Combinator Spring 2018 cohort and pitched at Demo Day earlier this week, after which they started fundraising.

“We know this isn’t something you’re eating everyday,” said Raman. Our research shows that, for the most part, millennials are cooking or ordering delivery instead of reheating meals. But the high quality of Buttermilk’s offerings — as well as their reasonable price point and badge of “authenticity” could make them an exception to the rule.

GE Launches New Microwave with Scan-to-Cook Technology

If your store-bought mac-n-cheese always comes out of the microwave molten on the outside but frozen on the inside, you might be interested in GE’s newest appliance, which the company announced today.

The GE Smart Countertop Microwave lets you use your smartphone to scan the barcode on food packaging. Heating instructions are then sent directly to the microwave complete with cooking times and power levels.

As the GE press release rightly points out, the average microwave has 10 power levels, but if you’re like me, you only use one, turning the microwave into a blunt instrument that nukes everything from pizza pockets to re-heated leftovers on full blast, the roof of my mouth be damned.

The GE Smart Countertop Microwave comes with 3,000 different frozen, refrigerated and shelf-stable items pre-programmed, and will be updated as time goes on. If you want to go more manual with GE’s new microwave, it’s also Alexa-enabled, so you can use voice commands to do things like stop the microwave or add more time.

This is the first scan-to-cook appliance for GE, who is playing a little catch up here, since Whirlpool debuted appliances with similar features more than a year ago. GE’s microwave is on sale for for a limited time and is coming bundled with an Echo Dot for $154.98, after that the MSRP is $139.

While limited to pre-packaged items with barcodes right now, scan-to-cook technology is a good example of the guided cooking trend we are following here at The Spoon. Appliance manufactures like Electrolux and LG are partnering with software startups like SideChef and Innit to not just heat your food, but also help you through the entire cooking process.

Even if what you are cooking is simply microwaveable mac-n-cheese.

Update: We were initially given the wrong price for the GE microwave. We have updated this post with the correct pricing.

Markov Issued Patents For A Smarter Microwave Oven

A few months ago, The Spoon discovered how then-stealth startup Markov corporation was looking to use AI to make a better microwave. This past week, we’ve discovered the company has since taken significant steps towards locking up some intellectual property that could help them do just that.

Since the spring, the company has quietly began to talk about their oven – the Level – which essentially is exactly what I predicted back in March:  a smarter electronic oven which uses computer vision and other forms of machine learning to better apply energy. And just this in the past two weeks, the company, which counts eBay founder Pierre Omidyar as an investor, was awarded the two patents that originally tipped their hand.

As I wrote in March:

According to the first patent application entitled “Electronic oven with infrared evaluative control“, the company has developed technology for a control system that utilizes infrared camera sensors to assist in the cooking process. The patent application describes how they plan to use an infrared camera as part of a learning and control system that will more evenly apply heat as compared to a more traditional microwave oven.

This patent application appears to be related to another a patent application from the company founders called “Electronic oven with reflective energy steering“, which describes a way to use RF/microwave energy to more precisely and evenly apply the heat within the cooking chamber.

Markov’s technology looks like a significant upgrade to traditional microwaves, which suffer from uneven heating due to their inability to apply electromagnetic waves consistently across cooking zones for the duration of the cooking session. By using AI to better steer the electromagnetic energy more precisely, users will get better results.

Based on my original sleuthing, I had found the company had indicated it had raised an initial $20 million in funding.  According to this May article in the Wall Street Journal, the company has since raised its total funding to $25 million.

While Markov is currently offering demos of the Level, it has yet to reveal pricing for the oven.

You can see the a hero reel of the Level in action below.

Amazon Looks At Food Tech To Make Packaged Food Better

Amazon continues to explore ways to dominate the $700 billion grocery market, and this time the commerce giant is turning to military-grade food tech to gain an edge on competitors. Reuters is reporting on Amazon’s interest in a partnership with 915 Labs, a startup based in Denver that’s commercializing a technology known as MATS – or microwave assisted thermal sterilization. MATS is a process that takes prepared food and using a specific heating technique, eliminates food pathogens and microorganisms that cause spoilage.

According to Reuters, the process involves taking “sealed packages of food in pressurized water and heating them with microwaves for several minutes.” A sort of sous vide on steroids, the technique was developed at the University of Washington and received FDA approval in 2012 as a safe way to preserve fresh foods.

MATS replaces traditional preservation techniques which often entail heating foods at high temperatures for up to an hour, significantly damaging the quality and taste of the food. 915 Labs, the startup that’s trademarked MATS, says to solve the problem of damaged foods, companies add things like “salt, flavor, texture and color enhancers, and other unnatural ingredients” to make the foods edible again.

MATS-Made Foods and Beverages

Packaged food has to have a long shelf life in order for dry goods companies to make money – but the game changing element is taste. With MATS, companies could potentially make packaged food appealing again, in an era where the heavy consumer focus is on healthier, fresher options. Which brings us to Amazon.

With Amazon Pantry, Dash replenishment services, the purchase of Whole Foods and the use of machine learning and AI to run next-gen stores, Amazon is all in on the grocery game. And while the company is still working on ways to compete in the fresh foods game, Amazon is taking prime real estate in the middle of the grocery store with dry goods.

And besides boxed snack foods and household items, what lives in the middle of the grocery store? Prepared and packaged foods. From frozen dinners to soups, pasta mixes and “just add water” foods, the center aisles are generally filled with sodium-laden offerings that can be bought and sit in pantries for months.

As Amazon looks at building its own meal kit delivery service(see Mike’s Amazon meal kit review), there’s a clear interest in developing its own line of foods that take advantage of Amazon’s massive e-commerce infrastructure but also don’t require the large investment that fresh food transportation and storage often do, particularly in the form of refrigeration.

And without additives and sodium, MATS produced packaged foods could still stay on the shelf just as long but taste much better and be comparatively healthier than their traditionally preserved counterparts.

The research that led to the development of MATS was funded by several large food companies, including Nestle, General Mills, Delmonte and Pepsi, all of whom also play a big role in dry goods and groceries. But now 915 Labs owns the exclusive rights to MATS and its sister process, MAPS or microwave assisted pasteurization sterilization which is a faster way to pasteurize foods like dairy and baby food.

Reuters reports that consumers are unlikely to see MATS-created packaged foods from Amazon until 2018 – and maybe even later depending on how the company decides to integrate the technology with its current offerings. It’s clear that the omnichannel retailer has big plans for food domination in the future.

The Battle For The ‘Kitchen Screen’ Has Just Begun. Here’s The Leading Contenders

Back in the year 2000, the world’s first Internet-connected refrigerator was introduced. Made by LG, the Digital DIOS came with a webcam, an Ethernet port and perhaps most importantly, an LCD touchscreen.

The fridge was one of the first examples of an appliance with a digital screen created specifically for the consumer kitchen, but with a $20 thousand price tag, consumers stayed away.  Today, nearly two decades after the introduction of the world’s first smart fridge, some of the world’s biggest consumer electronics companies are rushing to put screens back into the kitchen again.

Why now? There are a few reasons, but most come back to one simple truth: today’s kitchen is becoming the home’s central gathering place, where people not only come to make meals but also to hang out with friends, pay bills or do homework. In other words, the kitchen has become the modern home’s ‘everything room’, and unlike the family room where a TV or family computer often resides, there’s no defined product today in the kitchen that’s accepted as the go-to screen for family members to share information, manage home systems, keep tabs on things and communicate with one another.

Not that some companies aren’t trying. Here’s a look at the leading contenders:

Refrigerators

With ample flat surface space and usually centered in the middle of the kitchen, you can see why appliance makers see the fridge as the logical place to put a big digital screen. And unlike past efforts where companies would sometimes slap a screen on a fridge with limited functionality, today’s smart fridges have big, high-definition LED touch screens. The Samsung Family Hub’s screen is 21.5″, while LG’s Smart Instaview refrigerator has a huge 29″ screen.

Pros: The main advantage of having the refrigerator act as a family’s community screen is the simple fact the fridge has long served as the home’s de facto analog bulletin board, where families stick shopping lists, family pictures, and calendars. Given what seems a natural progression for the fridge to become the home’s digital command center, it’s no surprise companies have been pursuing the idea of the smart fridge for two decades.

Cons: The biggest challenge fridges face in becoming the main ‘family screen’ is simple: these are devices that are meant to stay in a house for ten years or more. This long lifespan is much different from traditional computing devices, such as mobile phones or tablets, which typically have much faster replacement cycles.  Consumers plopping down $2,500 for the latest fridge are going to want their new device to last for at least a decade, no matter how smart they are when they purchase them.

Smart Assistants

Though the Amazon Echo is only a couple years old, its success has create a whole new category of devices alternatively called ‘smart speakers’ or ‘virtual assistants’ (for our purposes I’ll call them ‘smart assistants’, since not all are speakers and the hardware part beyond the voice assistant is hardly virtual).

And now, the company’s new Echo Show represents an entirely new and exciting direction, with a 7″ touch screen and a new visual skill API that allows third party developers to create skills that leverage visual information such as live stream video from a networked camera or cooking videos from Twitch.

And let’s not forget HelloEgg, a smart assistant with an embedded visual display designed specifically for the kitchen created by a company called RND64 that is expected to ship this year.

Pros: Unlike a heavy appliance like a fridge, smart assistant products can be purchased and installed anywhere on a countertop.  In a way, they’re like a highly optimized tablet, but instead of being a personal computing device they’re created to act as a shared screen. In many ways, the Echo Show is Amazon’s concept of a kitchen computer.

Cons: The touchscreen enabled smart assistant category is just simply too new to know how well it will do with consumers. While the Amazon Echo and other smart assistant products are no doubt becoming popular, it’s just a little soon to see how popular smart assistants with touchscreen will be.

Kitchen Counters And Flat Surfaces

The concept of using the kitchen counter as a Minority Report like interactive touch screen has been bouncing around in future-forward design studios for much of the past decade and, in the past couple years, big kitchen electronics makers like Whirlpool have even toyed with the idea of the countertop touch screen.

IKEA Concept Kitchen 2025

Pros: First and foremost, the idea of your surface as interactive computing screen is just cool. It also offers an extremely flexible and dynamic format to display information and adjust to specific design needs of a kitchen.

Cons: While the idea has been floating around and touted by such big brands like Whirlpool and IKEA, a projected surface touchscreen has yet to roll out in any significant way in a mass market consumer product.

Kitchen-Centric PCs

For a hot moment back in 2008-9, some in the computer industry decided that since people spend lots of time in the kitchen, they should create a line of Kitchen PCs. The idea wasn’t altogether bad since, in some ways, was a predecessor concept to the Echo Show since these products centered around the early touchscreen Windows PCs. But not surprisingly, the late aughts “kitchen PC” movement fizzled out as quickly as it started.

Pros: The idea of a kitchen computer with a touchscreen is not a bad idea, and lots of people actually have their PCs in the kitchen.

Cons: These devices were just Windows PCs with touchscreens that were very much a product of 2009.

The Microwave Oven

The fridge isn’t the only device where a screen could reside. In fact, a decade ago appliance giant Whirlpool toyed around with the concept of putting a TV screen on a microwave oven. While they never rolled the product out to market, others have since toyed around with the idea.

Games Console Microwave

Pros: Some appliances, like the microwave, are nearly as prevalent as refrigerators. Chances are a touchscreen enabled microwave would likely be much less expensive than a smart fridge.

Cons: At this point, I know of no product company that is considering a smart microwave, perhaps because of the complications of sticking a flat screen computing device on the front of a microwave. Not to say someone couldn’t surprise me, but this one seems to be the domain of tinkerers and video-bloggers at this point.

Bottom line, we’re likely to see many more screens in the kitchen in coming years. Unlike the personal computing devices most of us carry in our pockets or backpacks, these “kitchen screen” will be tailored for shared use and act as a modern equivalent of family bulletin board/digital command center for the modern home.

The only open question is exactly which device will it be.

The Smart Kitchen Summit is around the corner. Get your ticket today before early bird ticket pricing before it expires to make sure you are the the one and only event focused on the future of food, cooking and the kitchen. 

Happy 50th Birthday, Microwave. Here’s Why You Won’t Make It To 100

Happy 50th birthday, microwave oven.

This year, the ubiquitous cooking box born out of an accidental discovery by a Ratheon military researcher has reached the half century mark, and as the last new cooking appliance category to become indispensable in nearly every American home, it’s certainly a milestone worth celebrating.

However, there are signs that the fast-cook workhorse will soon be on the decline as newer, better technologies make their way to market. On this 50 year celebration of the microwave, let’s consider how pervasive they’ve become and the many reasons the microwave oven will not be around for its hundredth birthday.

Surpassing Oven and Ranges

Ever since Amana introduced the first countertop unit back in 1967, consumers have embraced the convenience of the microwave. They helped usher in an era of fast-cook food like microwave popcorn and pizza, and as the microwave became cheap and plentiful in the 70s, they were soon everywhere.

Eventually the microwave rivaled traditional ovens and ranges in adoption, and today there are more microwaves sold quarterly than gas ranges.

Microwave Unit Shipments 2005-2017. Source: Statista

Still, for all its success, the microwave’s future is in doubt.  Perhaps the biggest reason is that while the microwave is fast and efficient, it’s actually pretty poor at its job. Not only do microwaves cook and reheat food unevenly, they are not good at cooking multiple items simultaneously.

And it’s these shortcomings that have opened the door for newer technologies such as…

Here Comes RF Cooking

RF cooking, which utilizes solid state (semiconductor) technology in place of the microwave’s old school technology, cooks with a much higher degree of precision.

Here’s what you can do with an RF cooking enabled oven:

  • Cook multiple foods at once within the same cooking chamber at different temperatures
  • Can sense when a food is done
  • Cook evenly across and through an entire piece of food rather than the uneven cooking results you get with a microwave

There are multiple companies with RF cooking technology products in development. One is Goji Food Solutions, which originally developed its RF cooking technology for medical applications as a way to heat tissue evenly. The company claims to have 147 issued patents in the area of RF solid state heating and another 76 pending. Other companies, such as NXP, have chip solutions that early system builders are bringing to market. Lastly, there is an industry consortium called the RF Energy Alliance that includes Whirlpool as a founding member that is working on standards for solid state RF technology.

Let’s Get Steamed

Tovala Oven

For many years, the combi oven has become the darling of chefs for its ability to combine multiple cooking modes (convection, steam, combination) into one and its ability to produce delicious food. However, despite its many advantages, the combi oven has been relegated mostly to the pro kitchen despite efforts by high end manufacturers such as Miele and Jenn-Air to bring to the home.

But that may change soon, as companies such as Anova and Tovala to bring low-cost counter top combi ovens to market for under $500.  The Tovala oven first sold to backers through a crowdfunding campaign and will be available for under $400 this year, while the Anova oven, which is expected to ship in mid-2018, will sell for under $500 when available.

The Instant Pot Generation: Slower Cooking Takes Hold

Lastly, while we may never see an end to prepackaged convenience food, it’s safe to say the heyday of the Hot Pocket is well past us. More and more Millennials are embracing slow cooking by using revamped old-school products with modern tech flourishes like the Instant Pot. This multifunction pressure cooker has become a phenomenon, garnering over 18 thousand reviews on Amazon to become the #1 overall product in the kitchen and dining category.

The Instant Pot

By adding multiple cooking types beyond just pressure cooking such as rice and yogurt mode as well as processor-driven programmable cook modes and automation, the Instant Pot has tapped into a generation of young cooks and wannabe cooks who love Swiss Army knife devices that can save space by combining multiple functions while also producing high quality results.  There are best-selling cookbooks, as well as dozens of websites and large and active Facebook and Reddit communities where enthusiastic Instant Pot users share recipes and cooking tips.

So, while it’s time to step back and wish the one of the most unlikely success stories of the modern kitchen a happy 50th birthday, it’s also a time to recognize that the microwave’s best days might be behind it. Newer and better technology technology, combined with changing consumer behavior, could mean we might be celebrating a new type of cooking appliance 50 years from now.

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Whirlpool Is Launching A Connected Microwave (And No, It Doesn’t Have A Camera)

This week, Kellyanne Conway had many people wondering if a microwave can actually spy on us. As WIRED writer Lily Hay Newman deftly explains, the answer is a definite no, unless of course the microwave has a camera or a microphone (which pretty much no microwaves do).

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t any innovation happening when it comes to this kitchen workhorse. In fact, as it turns out a new FCC document filing surfaced yesterday for a new Whirlpool microwave that shows the world’s biggest appliance maker has some ideas for giving the fast-cook appliance a high-tech upgrade.

Whirlpool’s WiFi microwave doesn’t spy on you, but you can control it with an app

According to the document – uncovered by IHS analyst Lee Ratliff – the new Whirlpool smart microwave will have Wi-Fi and allow the user to receive notifications when a cook is done. It will also have other interesting features such as ‘Sabbath Mode’.

The filing gives us more details on a product that Whirlpool hinted at at this year’s CES as part of an expanded smart kitchen suite. And while there isn’t any indication of a microphone on board the device, there’s a good chance you will be able to talk to this new model with an Alexa integration, which was also a key focus for the consumer appliance giant at this year’s CES.

So while Whirlpool’s microwave may not be able to spy on you, you can certainly keep tabs on it and even tell it to mind its own business through Amazon’s smart home virtual assistant.