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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

smart grill

Traeger Grills Acquires Connected Thermometer Company MEATER

Traeger Grills, best known for its wood-pellet grills, announced today that it has acquired wireless meat thermometer company MEATER. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, and according to the press announcement, MEATER will continue to operate as a standalone company within Traeger Grills and Joseph Cruz will continue as MEATER’s Chief Executive Officer.

MEATER, which came out of Apption Labs, makes wireless Bluetooth and WiFi connected thermometers ($69 – $269, depending on the model) and an accompanying mobile app to give users continuous monitoring and guided cooking instructions. Stick the MEATER into your protein, select the type of protein that you’re cooking and the thermometer gives you real-time tracking of internal and ambient temperatures. Once the food hits the target internal temperature, the MEATER app sends you an alert to pull your protein out of the heat and tells you how long to let it rest.

Traeger has its WiFIRE connected wood pellet grills also provides users with similar monitoring and target temperature functionality through a mobile app (and Apple Watch!). But unlike with MEATER, you can control the heat of the grill remotely to make adjustments to your cooking wherever you are in your home.

Despite similar features, it’s easy to see why the MEATER acquisition makes sense for Traeger. The MEATER software and user experience is more robust and visually appealing than Traeger’s homegrown app. And with MEATER, Traeger will now be able to expand its market beyond just those who own Traeger grills and beyond grilling season. Traeger can integrate its brand into the MEATER software and play a part in people cooking proteins on any type of grill, as well as their stoves and ovens when the weather turns cold.

Traeger acquiring MEATER can also been seen as a response to Weber buying smart oven maker June at the beginning of this year, as the two companies look to modernize in this connected era. The first line of June-integrated Weber grills announced in February of this year featured real-time temperature monitoring and guidance both on a grill display and on a mobile app. It’s not hard to imagine that future versions of Weber/June grills will feature the ability to automatically or remotely control cooking temperatures as well.

In other words, with both of these acquisitions, next summer will be definitely be hot for new, smart grills.

Weber Announces New Smart Gas Grills Using the June OS

Weber announced it is adding new smart grills to its Genesis and Spirit lines of gas grills. The new smart grills feature the Weber Connect technology, which is powered by the June OS, and will provide precision and guided cooking to backyard barbecuers.

The new line of Weber smart grills feature WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity, temperature probes and a built-in LED display. Using either the accompanying mobile app or the LED display, grillers can monitor the temperature of the grill as well as the doneness of what’s being grilled. The app will also alert grillers when it’s time to flip and serve their food.

What the grill won’t do, however, is automate your grilling. So, unlike a June oven, which automatically changes the type of heat (bake, broil, etc.) and temperature to cook your food, the Weber smart grill requires manual temperature controls. This is a bit of a bummer, but probably understandable given that the grill would have to regulate the flow of gas rather than electric current to adjust temperatures.

Today’s announcement comes a little less than a month after Weber acquired smart oven maker, June. June’s technology was used in the SmokeFire wood pellet grill back in 2019, and and two developed the Connect Hub, a small device that added smart cooking features to conventional grills.

Innovation in the outdoor grill space has certainly, errr, heated up over the past few years. Traeger has its own line of connected smart pellet smokers, German brand, Otto has a line of connected and modular grill components, and Spark launched its line of precision charcoal grills.

The new smart grills from Weber are all listed as “Coming Soon” on the company’s website. Prices range anywhere from $799 to $1,299.

Spark Grill Wants to Improve Charcoal Grilling. Will Grillers Go For Its Proprietary Charcoal System?

Memorial Day often marks the start of grilling season, and, like most Americans, I’m ready to fire up the barbie after being stuck inside for most of the past two months.

I’m currently using a standard gas grill but lately have been thinking about adding charcoal to my backyard cooking arsenal, which is why I was intrigued when I heard about the Spark Grill. The Spark, which just opened up for preorders this week, looks to essentially add the precision heating capability and ease-of-use of gas to a charcoal grill.

Here’s what Chris wrote about the Spark after the Boulder-based company announced its eponymously-named first product:

The stylish grill ditches the lumps of briquets for a single, flat charcoal “Briq,” and uses a series of stoking and cooling fans for precision temperature control.

The Spark is capable of getting temperatures between a low 200 degrees all the way up to a ripping hot 900 degrees. The grill also has an accompanying mobile app that lets you monitor the temperatures of your cooking cavity and the food you’re cooking.

Anyone who’s tasted food grilled over charcoal would agree the flavor is generally better, but I’ve stayed away mostly because charcoal is more work and I’m pretty lazy when it comes to my backyard cooking.

But from the looks of it, the Spark makes charcoal grilling as easy as gas. This ease-of-use is made possible by the grill’s unique charcoal “Briqs”, which are single-use sheets of charcoal made for the Spark. A standard Briq lasts for about an hour, though the company has indicated they will also have “Quick Briqs”, which go for 30 minutes for the mid-week quick grill, and are working on “slow and low” Briqs, which will go for a couple hours at smoking temperatures.

In short, the Spark presents a tradeoff: gas-like ease and precision with charcoal, but you have to use what is a proprietary charcoal system. I’ve become mostly resistant to hardware that is captive to a single-source for its consumables, but I think I’d be ok with the Spark and its Briq system for a couple of reasons.

First, the company’s FAQ says, technically, one can use regular charcoal with the Spark. This gives me some comfort that my grill wouldn’t be (ahem) “bricked” if the Spark stopped making Briqs for some reason.

The second reason is the company seems well-positioned to capitalize on the growing demand for home grills in a market slightly underserved with innovative new products. As we’ve learned recently with PicoBrew, startups tend to go out business, but it appears there’s strong early demand for the Spark, which helps alleviate (at least for the time being) concerns I would have about going all-in with a startup selling a proprietary consumable.

So while some traditional charcoal devotees might bristle at the idea of a proprietary system, I think there will be enough folks like myself interested in what looks to be an easier way to grill with charcoal to take at least take a look at the Spark.

The product isn’t cheap with a $949 sticker price, but if you hurry you can get in on the third drop (the first two sold out) and snap one up for $799.

Cinder Rises From the Ashes, Backers to Get Their Grills Courtesy of Desora

Cinder Grill, the crowdfunded smart countertop cooking device that, errr flamed out last year (read our coverage of the legal saga), appears to be reborn, courtesy of an acquisition by Desora, who announced the news today.

In a pretty rare turn of events, the nearly 1,000 people who backed Cinder on Indiegogo will actually be getting the product they paid for! Most backers of failed hardware project get bupkis, but Desora posted the following on the crowdfunding platform today:

The Cinder Grill and its technologies were acquired and absorbed by Desora. Cinder is now being reintroduced as part of the Desora family of precision grilling and food products, including iKamand, a smart grill controller, ProJoe, Classic III, and Big Joe III, high-caliber grills powered by Desora. All of you who have supported Cinder previously will be receiving your grills as we bring the product to the U.S. market.

The Cinder can also be purchased online now for $429.

Upon hearing the news, we had a few questions, the first of which being, who is Desora? The company hadn’t come across our radar, but it has the aforementioned line of outdoor grill and grill control products including the iKamand smart grill temperature controller, so the Cinder acquisition is on brand for the company. According to Crunchbase, Desora has raised an undisclosed Series A round from Morningside Group, a Shanghai-based “private investment group founded in 1986 by the Chan family of Hong Kong.”

In the press announcement, Desora said it acquired Cinder in November 2018, which is a month after Cinder filed for bankruptcy UPDATE: Following the publication of this article, I learned from Desora’s CEO that his company’s acquisition offer was made before Palate Home actually filed the bankruptcy paperwork.. As we wrote back in October:

Chapter 7 bankruptcy means that Palate Home’s assets will be sold off to pay its creditors. What this means for the future of the technology behind Cinder is unclear. Will the underlying IP be acquired and baked into a different product?

We reached out to Desora to see if we could suss out any further details around the acquisition, the state of manufacturing and the future of the Cinder.

Court Ordered Cinder Grill Maker to Repay Tony Fadell’s Investment Firm $294,736

Palate Home, the company behind the Cinder grill, was ordered by a San Mateo court in August to pay $294,736 to Tony Fadell’s investment firm, Future Shape LLC. The default judgment compels Palate Home to repay a $250,000 loan to Future Shape plus $43,737 in interest as well as $999 in costs.

We are not lawyers, but from reading the court documents it looks as though on January 14, 2015, Future Shape provided a $250,000 loan in the form of a convertible promissory note to Palate Home. The original $250,000 plus five percent interest came due on July 14, 2016.

We uncovered this judgment working on a story chronicling the troubles Palate Home was having manufacturing and shipping Cinder to its crowdfunding backers. The Cinder is countertop electric appliance that delivered sous-vide like precision cooking without the need for plastic bags and a circulating water bath, plus the ability to sear meats — something sous vide wands can’t do. Our very own Mike Wolf was a big fan of the appliance.

The fact that Future Shape was involved at all must have been a feather in the cap (and money in the bank, evidently) for Palate Home. Future Shape is the investment firm of Tony Fadell, who is famous for helping invent the iPod and for founding Nest Labs. The fact that he was involved at all seems like validation, at least at the time of the loan, that there was something promising in the Cinder.

Indiegogo updates provided by Palate Home Co-Founder and CEO Eric Norman over the past year outline manufacturing issues that his company was experiencing that were, in turn, delaying the shipment of orders to its crowdfunders.

What’s interesting is the timing. The Future Shape convertible note was issued in January of 2015, came due in July 2016, and Palate Home closed its Cinder Indiegogo campaign in June of 2017, raising $552,405 from 800 backers, almost a full year after the loan was due. The lawsuit from Future Shape was brought in April of 2018.

According to Indiegogo updates from Norman:

February 6, 2018 – A factory in China has 500 built Cinders (after delays caused by a faulty cooking plate) ready to ship to California.

April 2, 2018 – Palate Home still has not shipped grills to California. “Consequently,” writes Norman, “We’ve done everything we can to reduce our expenses. As things started to get tight, we reduced headcount and stopped taking any salary.

April 9, 2018 – In a Q&A style post, Norman writes:

What is the status of the grills?
They are built and accepted at the factory. Your grills are part of a larger order and the factory is not willing to release part of the order without payment in full. We’re in a bit of a Catch-22 situation: Selling more grills without shipping yours is (quite reasonably) difficult. At the same time, shipping your grills without the money to pay the factory for the full order would require us to sell more grills or secure a loan. We are exploring a few ways to solve this and ship to you.

That same day, Future Shape filed its complaint against Palate Home for breach of contract. Curious sidenote: according to a service of process court document filed August 23, 2018, a Summons and Complaint was sent to Eric Norman at the address listed for the designated agent on the corporation’s Statement of Information. “According to the process server’s declaration dated April 24, 2018, no company called Palate Home, Inc., is listed at this address. The current company at that location is called Shenzhen Valley Venture and the process server was informed that no one at that location had ever heard of Palate Home, Inc., or Eric [middle name removed by The Spoon] Norman.” To be fair, as you will read, there is a connection between Palate Home and Shenzen Valley, there could be any number of reasons someone at Shenzen didn’t know about Norman, especially depending on whom was interviewed.

July 2, 2018 – Norman says that he had reached an agreement to sell Palate Home to a Buyer that he says would have meant:

  1. All Indiegogo perks to be shipped with a target delivery of 3 months.
  2. Improvements customer service, software and recipe development, and shipping times.
  3. Initial cash payment earmarked to satisfy obligations to vendors.
  4. Royalties on future sales to provide a potential return for Cinder investors.

The problem, he says, is that the deal is being blocked by one of his investors. We should take a moment to recognize that Palate Home has more than one investor. According to Crunchbase (which, to be fair is not always up to date), Palate Home/Cinder has six:

  • Highway 1 (convertible note)
  • Zillionize Angel (seed round)
  • Scrum Ventures (seed)
  • Y Combinator (seed)
  • Angel List (equity crowdfunding)
  • Shenzen Valley Ventures (seed)

    • (Shenzen was mentioned by the process server in the previously mentioned court document)

This doesn’t appear to include the $552,405 raised on Indiegogo. Further, the $376,000 in total funding raised listed in Crunchbase seems to be just from the Angel List funding. Future Shape isn’t listed as an investor, and it doesn’t look like it’s $250,000 convertible note is listed. Doing the math, it looks as though at some point, Palate Home/Cinder had taken in at least $1.17 million, plus whatever money the company received from the remaining investors.

Going back to Norman’s update on July 2, 2018:

While investments in startups are generally considered to be long-term and non-refundable, we used a convertible note with one investor that gave them control over how to proceed at the maturity date. These notes are made to convert into equity at a future funding round. If a convertible note matures before such a funding round, there’s an expectation in Silicon Valley to either extend the maturity date – so much so that most notes give the company the ability to initiate conversion, and recent vehicles like the YC SAFE do away with maturity all together and simply convert at an equity event. While extremely unusual and unexpected, one of our investors asked for repayment at the maturity date. When we were not able to do so, they threatened legal action. This began a chain of problems for the company.

Norman writes that the “investor,” which is presumably Future Shape from the descriptions, agreed to a sale of the company and using that money to repay the loan. But, he writes: “Despite agreeing to this concept, this investor would not execute a written forbearance which killed any chance of moving forward.” Norman also alleges a number of clerical errors made by Future Shape in its filings.

August 5, 2018 – Norman writes “Since we were unable to reach a settlement agreement, we are essentially waiting for the court hearing which happens later this month.”

On August 17, 2018 a default judgment from the Superior Court of California, County of San Mateo (filed August 23), was issued against Palate Home ordering the company to pay $294,736. As we understand it, the default judgment was given because Palate Home basically did not present a defense.

In an update last week, on September 6, Norman wrote “Hello everyone. We are in discussions and I expect to have things wrapped up by the end of this month one way or the other, so if you can please bear us just a little bit longer. I greatly appreciate your patience.”

What exactly went wrong with Cinder? Is it dead dead, or does this lauded device still have a chance? Will Palate Home appeal? We have reached out to both Norman and Future Shape for more information, and will update this post if we hear back.