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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

smart kitchen

Carley Knobloch Wants Tech In The Kitchen To Be More Accessible

With the emerging popularity of smart home devices across every room of the home and the popularity of voice control devices like Amazon Echo and Google Home leading adoption, the media has become saturated with experts looking to educate consumers on how to use tech in their own homes. Of all the smart home gurus, Carley Knobloch might be one of the most well-known because of her practical, education-oriented approach and tone. Carley’s mission is to help people improve their relationship with technology and sift through the buzzwords to form their own opinions on connected living – one tap or swipe at a time.

Carley’s media legacy began with her blog, a carefully curated resource filled with product reviews, news and guides. The site’s aesthetic mirrors Carley’s approach to talking tech – simple, sleek and modern. The technology is not at the forefront but rather, a tool to help tell a greater story on how connected living can look. It’s not wires and bulky black boxes, but instead functional, stylish smart home living products and accessories that make life just a little bit easier.

In addition to her blog and social media pages, Carley is a regular contributor to the Today Show and CNN, and is the Technology consultant and host for HGTV’s annual smart home. Carley sees her role as specifically to educate those new to smart tech. “I’m helping the later-adopters and the smart-curious folks out there unpack what’s going on in this exciting space, and how it can improve their lives now, and in the future,” she says. For Carley, speaking to this audience is a unique position to

“I’m helping the later-adopters and the smart-curious folks out there unpack what’s going on in this exciting space, and how it can improve their lives now, and in the future,” she says. For Carley, speaking to an audience of mostly homeowners (with a heavily female audience) every day that is excited about the smart home and what it can do means helping them get started with products that make sense and are priced right. They want to buy products that are addressing their needs and solving real problems.

“When I started my blog and media career, there weren’t a lot of women— who run a home, a family and a business—  talking about technology. Most tech experts were speaking to the early-adopters and enthusiasts,” says Carley. “I set out to create an approachable conversation about tech in the home and the kitchen that everyday people could relate to: What’s going on? How does it affect me? Is it time to adopt? Will I be able to use it?”

Creating this open dialogue with her followers has helped Carley steer the industry conversation and better understand the issues that are directly impacting the adoption rate of smart home technology – in or outside of the kitchen. Many companies and manufacturers are taking a “rapid fire” approach to developing technology, without focusing on the end-user experience or adaptation.

“I think that ultimately, consumers are looking for the right price, and the right application: a layer of technology that will make their lives easier, not harder,” says Carley. “They are eager to figure out what technology is right for them in the kitchen and beyond— many are wary because the industry to date has been like the wild west with everyone firing products into the market that may not be ready or require a big learning curve.”

So where does Carley see the smart home conversation heading for product developers and manufacturers? “Manufacturers should be holding themselves to high standards, as early ambassadors for this product vertical,” she explains. “They have to get more right than they do wrong, or it will be hard to change consumer’s minds later.”

Now in her second year at Smart Kitchen Summit, Carley wants to help tackle conversations on how the IoT is affecting big brands across the appliance industry and will lead a fireside chat with Kenmore/Sears and GE leadership charged with this very task.

Don’t miss Carley at the 2017 Smart Kitchen Summit. Check out the full list of speakers and register for the Summit, using code HGTV to get 25% off ticket prices.

The Smart Kitchen Summit is the first event to tackle the future of food, cooking and the kitchen with leaders across food, tech, commerce, design, delivery and appliances. This series will highlight panelists and partners for the 2017 event, being held on October 10-11 at Benaroya Hall in Seattle.

Smart Kitchen Startup Else Labs Raises $1.8 Million

While no one has quite figured out what the robot cook of the future looks like, it’s not for lack of trying.

While some labor to create a fully functional transformer-meets-home-chef like Moley, others see a path filled with single-function robots spitting out tortillas and mixing drinks.

And then there’s Else Labs, which sees a future for cooking automation that fuses timeworn cooking concepts like a slow cooker with modern advances such as a smart dispenser system and app control.

Else founder Khalid Aboujassoum first presented the concept for his automated cooker on Stars of Science, a Qatar TV show similar to Shark Tank. At the time, he only had a rough working prototype of the product that would eventually come to be known as Oliver, but he received enough encouragement to start working with a San Francisco design firm and keep on developing the product.

Illustration of a user preparing food for the Oliver cooking chambers. Source: Else Labs

After participating in last year’s Smart Kitchen Summit’s Startup Showcase, the team continued to work on Oliver’s development. They created another early prototype and started doing one-on-one cooking sessions with consumers in their homes to refine the experience. And now, with the company’s goal of bringing the product to market in spring of 2018, they have raised a seed round of $1.8 million.

I emailed Aboujassoum to ask him a few questions about the funding and the company’s product:

Wolf: Who were your investors?

Aboujassoum: Yellow Services, a wholly owned subsidiary by Qatar Development Bank, is the institutional investor. YS manages a $100M fund dedicated to innovation startups and SMEs that can contribute in diversifying Qatar’s economy.

Wolf: How much total has Else Labs raised?

Aboujassoum: $1.95 million. (ed note: The company raised an angel round of approximately $150 thousand)

Wolf: Where is Oliver in terms of development and expected ship date? 

Aboujassoum: We have an advanced working prototype that we are using to conduct 1-to-1 sessions with early adopters in their homes. Those sessions are helping us in refining the user experience and prepare for the pilot program that we are working on launching soon.

The pilot will inform our crowd-funding and overall launch strategy. Our target launch date is Q2 2018.

Wolf: Who are the key members of your team?

Aboujassoum: myself (ed note:Aboujassoum is founder & CEO), Tariq Maksoud (cofounder & lead mechanical engineer, and Abdulrahman Saleh Khamis (cofounder & lead electrical engineer).

Wolf: There hasn’t been a successful product in the robotic/automated cooking category yet. Why will Oliver be different?

Aboujassoum: We believe that the main reason it’s been difficult to crack the market is because the cost has been too high or the product has been simply too intimidating or different from what a user is accustomed to in a kitchen appliance.

We were determined to keep lasersharp focus on engineering Oliver to be cost effective and enhancing what is already familiar to the user in what to expect from a kitchen appliance. With Oliver, we were able to build the necessary functions of automated dispensing, mixing, and heating that meets its futuristic robotic function, but yet familiar in its form to the user.

Finding the balance between performance, form, and cost was a challenge that we were able to overcome with the technology we have developed. Overcoming this challenge was the key to opening the door to designing a user centred product in this space. This is what makes Oliver different.

We know that we still have a long way ahead of us, but we believe Oliver is the perfect balance that will be inviting to users in and will bridge that gap between traditional kitchen appliances and the future of cooking.

Else Labs was one of 15 startups selected for the 2016 Smart Kitchen Summit Startup Showcase. To find the next big thing in cooking, you won’t want to miss the Startup Showcase at this year’s Smart Kitchen Summit. Use the discount code SPOON to get 25% off of any ticket.

Making Traditional Food Prep Smarter With Vitamix

Vitamix is a household name is the kitchen; in 1949, founder William G. Barnard demonstrated the Vitamix blender in the first U.S. infomercial in the early days of television. Since then, Vitamix has worked to uphold William’s mission, developing kitchen food preparation tools as technology continues to mature and provide new capabilities. As COO, much of Tony Ciepiel’s work is thinking about how the market is evolving and how Vitamix can lead in bringing new technology to traditional kitchen prep devices like the Vitamix Ascent Series.

The company’s smart blender series builds on the traditional Vitamix blender and adds emerging technology and capabilities such as built-in timers and wireless connectivity. “As we began designing and planning for the launch of the Ascent Series, we asked ourselves how we might add value for our customers through intuitive design and maximum ease of use,” said Ciepiel. “Among other things, that line of thought drove us to incorporate Near Field Communication (NFC) technology into the containers for our Ascent Series blenders.”

Through NFC, the blender can detect what size container has been placed onto the base and will change blending program parameters accordingly. Those parameters include ramp-up times and blade speeds as well as the overall length of a blending program. “That was really a breakthrough moment that brought us to the forefront of intelligent technology within the blending space. We intend to remain there.”

In addition to the Ascent Series product, Vitamix has plans to launch an app that gives customers control over their blenders and what they can make. The app includes the ability to design blending programs that can then be uploaded to the blender to provide users the ability to customize programs to meet their needs. The app pairs those programs with recipes that go directly to the blender. Vitamix allows users to access those recipes but also works with their Perfect Blend Smart Scale, to let the user know exactly – down to a fraction of an ounce – how much of each ingredient to load into the blender container, and can scale the recipe to desired volume or calorie count.

“When you combine that level of automation, product intelligence and connectivity, you impart the expertise of professional chefs to the novice user, which in turn creates unparalleled joy of use and a real feeling of accomplishment,” said Ciepiel of the app.

But how are consumers reacting to this kind of technology? Tony sees it as both an opportunity and a challenge. “One of the interesting challenges we face as an industry is giving consumers a compelling reason to invest their time and money into learning how to integrate “Internet of Things” features into their daily lives,” said Ciepiel. “We’re in a unique position to evolve a product that people already love for its convenience and reliability…. we need to help our customers understand why we’re integrating new, connected technology into our products, and why it’s more than worth their time to come along for the journey.”

Vitamix recognizes that a unique approach is needed when addressing the future of kitchen technology and communicating its benefits. Through in-depth research, they’ve been able to gain a better grasp on the voice of their customer and from that research, are working to develop products that can be woven seamlessly into customers lives.

“It’s not just creating technology for the sake of technology, but rather creating products that directly fulfill what customers want and help them achieve their personal goals, whatever those may be. This will inevitably include more connected, high-tech products in the kitchen as time goes by,” Ciepiel acknowledged. “The industry needs to create and agree upon technical communication standards sooner rather than later.”

The Smart Kitchen Summit is the first event to tackle the future of food, cooking and the kitchen with leaders across food, tech, commerce, design, delivery and appliances. This series will highlight panelists and partners for the 2017 event, being held on October 10-11 at Benaroya Hall in Seattle.

Don’t miss Tony Ciepiel of Vitamix at the 2017 Smart Kitchen Summit. Check out the full list of speakers and register for the Summit, using code VITAMIX to get 25% off ticket prices.

Klove Offers Low-Cost Entry Point To The Smart Kitchen

The current state of the smart kitchen is still, well, kind of expensive. And that’s ok – markets in their early days often produce products with high price tags as demand is still being developed and solutions still being realized. Intelligent ovens, smart fridges, connected tea infusers – it all sounds like an amazing eutopia of high tech deliciousness. But these solutions aren’t making cooking easier for the masses – at least not yet. But some areas of the smart kitchen are starting to produce at mainstream prices – most specifically in the sous vide space with sub $100 machines available at big box retailers like Target.

And then there are startups like Klove. The concept behind the Klove stove top knob is pretty cool – it’s a retrofit device that replaces your dumb stove knobs and adds a pretty crazy amount of intelligence into a little form factor.

The Klove smart knob acts as an entry-level guided cooking system – assessing the state of heat on whatever dish you’re preparing and letting you know when to adjust and when you can walk away. Klove comes with a host of recipes to start with, so you don’t have to guess what to cook when you get started.

Klove -Just Talk and cook

With a companion app (because of course) and Google Home / Amazon Echo compatibility, the Klove smart knob also has some machine learning baked in and will adjust recipes based on your preferences over time. Sure it might say to scramble eggs for 5-7 minutes, but maybe you like yours runny. The knob will learn that over time and adjust its alerts accordingly. Like a little digital sous chef who remembers your favorite type of pancake. (Chocolate chip. It’s always chocolate chip.)

There’s even a safety feature built into the device. Try to leave home with your stove on – the Klove app will alert you before you get out the door, ending the days of wondering “did I leave my stove on?” when you get to work. It will also alert you if you walk away from the stove for a minute or two and are needed to turn something up or down. If you’ve ever cooked something too long – or had boiled water overflow and spill onto the stove top, you’ll probably find this feature helpful.

The best part is that Klove is only $29. Well, for now – it’s available for pre-order on Indiegogo for $29 which is technically a price drop from the company’s first unsuccessful crowd funding campaign. But there seems to be some momentum this time around and the sub $40 price point is pretty attractive. If voice control is driving more interest in connected tech in the home, retrofit devices like Klove can help consumers see the value of technology to assist them in cooking better and easier at home.

Klove has had some momentum recently, having raised $250k from investors in a SEED round of funding and being named “The Next Big Thing” in food tech via the Nestle “Next Big Thing” startup competition in London. Klove isn’t the first company to create a retrofit smart knob for stoves – Meld introduced its smart knob in 2015 and went a step further than Klove to be able to automatically control the temperature during cooking as opposed to notifying someone to turn the dial up or down when ready. Meld ended up cancelling its Kickstarter when it was acquired by Meyer Corp (owner of guided cooking brand Hestan Cue) after the campaign was successfully funded. Hestan took the learning and knowledge behind the Meld knob and used it to build its current guided cooking platform – though the actual knob form factor never resurfaced.

Klove has about 4 weeks left to raise the initial $20k to get started on development – and with a few smart knob competitors in the space, it will be interesting to see how they do. For now, you can grab a Klove for $29 as an early bird backer and expect to see the smart knob right around Christmas.

Beyond The Countertop: June Introduces Intelligent Wall Oven For $1,995

June, the company behind the intelligent countertop convection oven, has introduced its first wall oven, the June Pro.

The June Pro, available for sale today on the company’s website for $1,995, comes in a 24″ wall model, with other sizes to be made available soon. In addition to being the company’s first wall oven, the June Pro will have the same features which made the original June stand out, such as in-oven HD camera, fast-heat carbon fiber heating elements, app control, and automatic software updates. The June Pro’s internal dimensions are the same as the countertop model, with a height of 12.8 inches, 19.6 inches wide, with a depth of 19 inches. The June Pro, which is expected to ship within 30 days, comes with “white glove” installation service.

I caught up with June’s CEO, Matt Van Horn, by phone to talk about their new product. When asked about the biggest difference between the June Pro and other ovens, he didn’t hesitate.

“The best feature of the June is it’s the first appliance to get better over time instead of worse,” said Van Horn. “All the learning we are able to collect from consumers that make it available to us, all that gets pushed into software updates.”

The June Pro wall oven

While some Wi-Fi capable ovens from other manufacturers such as GE have added new software features in the field such as Alexa compatibility, June takes it to another level. Van Horn pointed to a recent software update that June rolled out a few weeks ago that added slow cooker and warming drawer capability to existing June countertop ovens.

“We literally build new appliances in software,” said Van Horn. “We researched slow cookers and figured out how to do that with our current hardware.” The new slow cooker and warming drawer feature will be available in the wall ovens as well according to Van Horn.

One of the selling points of the June countertop oven was its ability to identify foods using an internal HD camera, which provided the necessary information for the oven to initiate an adaptive cooking program as well as monitor the progress of a cook.  When it first shipped last December, the original June could identify up to twenty-five food types, a number that was expected to increase over time.  While Van Horn wouldn’t tell me how many foods the original June could now identify over half a year after shipping, he did point to how continuous changes to the June OS allows the company to make improvements to the June’s adaptive cooking programs.

“One of the biggest complaints from customers was our bacon cook program,” said Van Horn.  When the company analyzed the data, they realized one of the most important variables when cooking bacon was the number of slices.  Cooking one slice of bacon required a completely different cook program than when cooking nine slices of bacon. Eventually, they adapted the program, so the oven automatically accounts for the number of slices (the internal camera will identify this) while also allowing for the user to input variables such as desired crispiness in the June app.

“We turned one a one sized fit all bacon program into 36 bacon programs,” said Van Horn.

One big positive with June’s new product is it is much more in line with pricing for its product category. While the first June oven had many features which set it apart from others in its general category, it was hard for many to accept a price point that was five to ten times more than other countertop convection ovens. At $1,995, the June Pro is a bit more pricey than some other 24″ wall ovens but doesn’t induce the same kind of sticker shock as the original June (which will, for now, remain priced at $1,495).

I’m also interested to see if and when the June Pro becomes available through brick and mortar retail. Like the June countertop oven, the June Pro will first only be available through the company’s website (the original June can now be bought through Amazon). While I realize going to brick and mortar retail would require the company to give up significant margin, I still think many consumers want to see how an oven looks built into a kitchen, even if that kitchen is a display unit in a Home Depot.

My biggest critique of the June Pro is its small internal dimensions. At the same exact size as the June countertop, it’s one cubic foot interior is much smaller inside than traditional 24″ ovens, which usually come with a five cubic foot cooking chamber. Consumers used to multiple oven racks or cooking tall items will probably pass on this device. Based on this, it will be interesting to see if future ovens offer a larger internal capacity.

Despite this, I think this is a big announcement for June. Simply having a built in oven product opens the company up to a whole new set of consumers.  Discriminating cooks who want access to high-end cooking features often available only in professional ovens that go for $10 thousand or more can now access some of those in an oven for two thousand bucks while not having to give up counter space to do it.

Hear June CTO Nikhil Bhogal speak at Smart Kitchen Summit in Seattle on October 10-11, 2017. Use the discount code SPOON to get 25% off of tickets. 

Neato Robotics Machines Are Coming To Clean Up After Dinner

Giacomo Marini isn’t afraid of the robot future – in fact, the company he leads is betting on it. Neato Robotics was founded by Standford alums Joe Augenbraun, Linda Pouliot and JB Gomez through the Stanford Entrepreneur Challenge and officially launched in 2010. The idea behind the company – that robots are just as capable of performing chores as humans – Neato has been working to develop advanced robotic technology for for vaccums in order to alleviate the stress and drain of modern life.

Neato has enjoyed success as a startup against rivals like Roomba and they have a heavy focus on intelligence and proprietary technology to create a self-cleaning vacuum with the smarts of a self-driving car. In fact, the company is the first and only group making robot vacuums with laser SLAM technology, best known for its use in the Google self-driving car, to map and navigate. Marini claims this technology is uniquely suited for indoor navigation and allows the robots to operate with precision in the dark.

Robotics and machine learning are two hot areas in Silicon Valley at the moment – and Marini is no stranger to success in the tech mecca. A co-founder of Logitech, Marini was part of the team that moved the Swiss-based company to Palo Alto in the early 1980s and credits much of the computer accessory company’s growth to that move. Marini went on to stay in Silicon Valley and run a venture capital firm and eventually join Neato as CEO in 2013.

Neato sees their vacuums playing an important role in making the clean up after meal prep and dinner much simpler. “Gone are the days when spilling flower on the floor while you cook would mean hauling out the heavy upright vacuum,” adds Marini. “Now you can simply use your voice to tell your Google Home or Amazon Alexa to start your Neato for you.” Neato recently added chatbot functionality for Facebook, jumping on another trend of using chatbots to control our homes – meaning you could shoot your vacuum a note to clean up the kitchen after dinner’s over from the backyard. 

Marini believes that the continued focus on user experience has been an essential component in the increase in connected device adoption. And – he points out – as the complexity of what our devices can do increases – that experience must remain the same. “As the capabilities of this technology become more complex, it’s imperative that the devices remain simple to interact with, so that our relationship with them feels natural and compelling.”

Ultimately, Neato Robotics wants to make products to give people more time. If we have tech to help us shop more efficiently and cook good food at home more simply, we should also be able to use tech to clean up, right? Marini agrees, saying “We’re at a pivotal point when the speed of emerging technologies make the human potential seem limitless. Our mission is to allow people to spend more their spare time on things that really matter – their passions, work, loved ones – and not on housework.”

Don’t miss Giacomo Marini, CEO of Neato Robotics at the 2017 Smart Kitchen Summit. Check out the full list of speakers and to register for the Summit, use code NEATO to get 25% off ticket prices.

The Smart Kitchen Summit is the first event to tackle the future of food, cooking and the kitchen with leaders across food, tech, commerce, design, delivery and appliances. This series will highlight panelists and partners for the 2017 event, being held on October 10-11 at Benaroya Hall in Seattle.

Fresh Or Frozen, These Startups Aim To Create A Keurig For Home Yogurt

With everyone nowadays seemingly trying to get their daily fill of probiotics, yogurt has become a go-to for a daily snack, tasty dessert or healthy way to start the day. For most of us, that means buying it at the store or heading out to get a sugar-filled frozen yogurt at the local froyo stand.

And while some are adventurous enough to create at home using one of the many home yogurt makers on the market, none of these devices offer make-at-home yogurt with Keurig like simplicity.

Until now. That’s because two new startups are coming to market with pod-based yogurt systems. And the good news for yogurt eaters? They will have our choice of fresh or frozen.

Yomee 

If you like fresh yogurt and want to make it at home, you will be interested in the Yomee from Food-X alumni, Lecker Labs. The original concept for a pod-based yogurt maker came to the company CEO Ashok Jaiswal when he and his wife started feeding their young daughter yogurt and were looking for an easy way to make it at home.

“When we found out that she loves yogurt, we wanted to buy good ones for her, but almost all yogurts sold in Hong Kong are expensive,” Jaiswal told the Loop. “They’re also often imported and therefore not fresh, and can contain lots of sugar and other ingredients.

When his wife asked him if he could make a device to make yogurt, he started researching the idea.

“I thought that there must have been so many in the market already, but when I Googled and checked on Amazon, I found that there were no fully automatic yogurt makers in the market.”

Jaiswal teamed up with cofounder Tu-Hien Le and soon raised $325 thousand in seed funding. The two were accepted into Food-X, a well-known food startup accelerator based in New York, and from there they went on to create Yomee.

To make yogurt with the Yomee, you put in milk and a Yomee pod (which will make approximately two servings of yogurt). The Yomee hardware stirs the milk, heats it to 185 degrees Fahrenheit and adds the cultures from the Yomee pod. Six hours later the yogurt, chilled to 55 degrees Fahrenheit.

According to my conversation with Tu-Hien Le at June’s Food IT event in Silicon Valley, the device will be for sale initially via Kickstarter at the end of August starting at $99, which is significantly lower than $800 to $1,200 retail price range that the two founders told the Loop  (ed note: Tu-Hien Le clarified via email that the price quoted to The Loop was in Hong Kong dollars).  According to Hien Le, the company will offer a subscription for its pods for $15 a month.

Yogurt for Dessert? Meet Wim

If you fancy a froyo instead, you’re in luck. The Wim, announced this week, makes single-serve frozen yogurt in about 10 minutes.

The product is the brainchild of Google alum Bart Stein. Stein, who sold his first startup Stamped to Yahoo in 2012, came up with the idea for a frozen yogurt maker while on vacation in the Catskills in 2014.

“There was an appliance for everything from coffee, to waffles, to soda,” Stein told Bloomberg. “We realized there was no appliance for frozen dessert.”

How To Frozen Your Yogurt

Stein went on to secure funding, build a team and over the next two years create a system that includes the Wim appliance and yogurt bowls. The system makes frozen yogurt when the user adds milk into the Wim bowl and presses a button on the Wim appliance. The Wim appliance stirs and chills the mixture of milk and ingredients to negative 10 Celsius (about 14 degrees Fahrenheit) in about 90 seconds.

The Wim bowls, which include a powder that activates when mixed with the milk, cost about $3 a bowl in bulk. Currently, the company offers ten flavors, ranging from strawberry to ‘brownie batter’ to ‘banana bread’. The Wim appliance will set you back $299.

Unlike the Yomee, the Wim is available today.

Bloomberg’s Kate Krader tested out the Wim and liked what she tasted. “So what does it taste like? The dessert is luxuriously creamy and airy, with a tangy bite,” she wrote.

Are We Ready For Keurig For Yogurt?

Will pod-based yogurt take a bite out of store bought or the traditional home yogurt makers on the market?

Maybe. There is an obvious advantage to having long-shelf life dry yogurt pods that you can mix fresh on demand.  For those who want fresh yogurt daily, something like the Yomee may make sense, particularly if the product is in the lower end of the price range.

Of course, the Yomee will need to compete with older, less smart yogurt makers on the market. One such product is the Euro Cuisine, which costs about $30 and makes yogurt using yogurt starters.  But systems like this require more cleaning and the user to put yogurt into jars.

The Wim will face competition from both the local froyo stand and devices like the Cuisinart ICE-21, a popular home frozen yogurt maker that sells for about $50, but takes anywhere from 16 hours to 24 hours to make a batch of froyo.

For both potential users of the Yomee and Wim, the clear advantage is increased convenience and rapid-serve small portions.  If the companies can get the price right while perfecting pod systems to work well, I think will be a subset of consumers who find the convenience of Keurig-like simplicity, speed and clean up the right mix for their yogurt fix.

Group That Brought Us Wireless Charging Wants To Do Away With Power Cords In The Kitchen

Appliance garage getting tangled up with power cords?

Not to worry. Eventually, those pesky power cables may some day be a problem of the past. That’s because the Wireless Power Consortium, the same group behind the Qi wireless charging standard, has set its sights beyond mobile phones and now hopes to change how appliances are powered in the kitchen.

Imagine A Cordless Kitchen

So what would a cordless kitchen look like? Not unlike those futuristic videos you’ve probably seen, one where everyday surfaces like kitchen countertops and tables can send power to products ranging from coffee makers to cookware.

In a white paper published by the WPC in February, the group highlights a few key use cases, two of which are illustrated in the artist rendering below.

Using cordless appliances on a kitchen counter. Image credit: Wireless Power Consortium/Philips

The first image on the left is one where a small kitchen appliance like a blender is powered without the need for a cable. In the second image on the right, the counter acts not only as a source of heat using induction heating, but also utilizes wireless power technology to enable communication between the cookware and the heat source to set the appropriate power for high-precision cooking.

How Does It Work?

How will wireless power in the kitchen work? Like the Qi standard for smaller devices like phones, the KWG will use induction charging, where a magnetic power coil (MPC) in the surface couples with a second coil in the appliance.

If you are familiar with induction heating for cooking, this utilizes the same induction power transfer concepts, only in this case instead of heating a pan or other piece of cookware, the power is converted back to electricity.

The KWG has settled on NFC as the primary communication technology in part because it is safer. One obvious safety benefit of NFC is the technology requires close proximity for communication, which means practically zero chance of an appliance communicating with the wrong transmitter.

A Long Cook Cycle

The history of the Wireless Power’s Kitchen Working Group (KWG) dates back to 2013 when consumer electronics giants Philips and Haier started pushing the WPC to look at developing a kitchen standard.

Four years later, the group is still busy plugging away and, while things are moving slowly, the group chaired by Hans Kaublau is still working towards a world where kitchen cords are a thing of the past.

Why are things moving so slowly?

According to Kablau, there are few reasons. One is it’s simply taken some time to get wireless power charging to the point where it can power appliances. Qi, the WPC’s first standard, took years to develop, starting in 2009 with 5W power requirement and in 2015 bumping that up to 15W capability (medium power). This year, the WPC hopes to enable charging of high power devices with 100W capability.

Second is it takes time to get buy in from all the major stakeholders. While Haier and Philips were there from the beginning, the group has yet to get buy in from appliance giants Whirlpool and Electrolux.

Another challenge may be a divided industry. There continues to be something of a wireless power standards battle going on, with the Airfuel Alliance developing a different set of technologies for wireless power that utilizes resonant charging, a technology that offers benefits over WPC’s inductive charging such as longer ranges for power transfer. The Airfuel Alliance, which is backed by technology powerhouses like Qualcomm and Samsung and battery giant Duracell, doesn’t have a kitchen-focused initiative, but does say the technology can be used for “kitchen applications”.

All of this still that hasn’t stopped the two founding companies of WPG’s Kitchen Working Group from working on prototypes. In 2016, Philips showed off a prototype on Fuji TV in Japan of an electric fryer with wireless power. You can see the video of the product in action below:

Cordless Kitchen Demonstration by Philips with Würth Elektronik Coils

The KWG is hoping to finalize the version 0.9 specification by the end of 2017. The specification has largely been defined but is currently being tested by the working group.

As a result, “we could be looking at products out next year,” said Kablau.

While I am excited for a future where we see cords go away and all our kitchen appliances are magically charged simply by setting them down on the counter, I suspect such a future is still a long way off.  One only has to look at how slow induction heating has been to take off in the US to see how resistant the traditional kitchen and appliance makers – as well as consumers – are to change.

Still, that doesn’t mean I’m not excited for the future of the cordless kitchen.  There are clear benefits of dropping power cords, whether it means a more orderly countertop or the greater safety of no cords on wet surfaces, and with cordless kitchen products debuting as soon as next year, it might be time for the industry and consumers to start getting excited as well.

If you want to hear Wireless Power Consortium Char Hans Kablau speak about the cordless kitchen, make sure to come to the Smart Kitchen Summit in October. Use the discount code SPOON for 25% off of tickets.

Perfect Company Scores IP Win Against Maker Of Drop Scale

The smart kitchen IP battles are heating up.

Perfect Company, maker of the Perfect Drink and Perfect Bake smart scale systems, has scored a win against Adaptics, the company behind the Drop Scale. A request to review a Perfect Company patent by Adaptics has resulted in a US Patent and Trademark Office validation of Perfect Company’s core IP in the area of connected scales.

In December 2014, Perfect company filed a lawsuit against the makers of the Drop Scale that claimed Adaptics had infringed on their patent. The company saw the the Drop Scale in violation of their 365 patent for a smart kitchen scale connecting to a smart device with a recipe app.

In December 2016, the United States Patent and Trademark Office agreed to reexamine Perfect’s patent based on claims made by Adaptics. Just seven months later, the USPTO decided Perfect’s patent was valid.

While Adaptics has since pivoted slightly to focus on providing the Drop platform to third parties, this ruling still marks an important win for Perfect, who sees its patent portfolio as an important weapon in the increasingly competitive platform wars in the connected kitchen.  The company has been aggressive about defending its IP, and has shown itself as somewhat opportunistic when it comes to shoring up its patent portfolio with the acquisition of Orange Chef’s IP last year.

“This reexamination successfully overcomes the prior art and arguments asserted by Adaptics in our ongoing litigation,” said Mike Wallace, CEO of Perfect Company. “We believe that this decision reaffirms our position as the leader in connected kitchen technology, which we will continue to aggressively defend.”

See the full press release below:

Perfect Company Announces Successful Patent Reexamination
Further Strengthening its Place in the Connected Kitchen

July 25, 2017 – Vancouver, WA – Perfect Company, the leading developer of connected kitchen products, announces today that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) issued a decision regarding the reexamination of its US Patent 8,829,365 (“‘365 Patent”). The decision upheld the validity of one of Perfect Company’s key patents with no changes and also allowed new claims that were considered during the reexamination.

The ‘365 Patent protects Perfect Company’s system that connects a smart kitchen scale to a smart device equipped with a recipe app – wirelessly or wired – allowing for communication between the scale and the device to ensure the perfect combination of ingredients every time. Current products in the marketplace covered by the patent include the Perfect Drink® app-controlled smart bartending system, Perfect Bake™ app-controlled smart baking system, Perfect Blend™ and Vitamix Perfect Blend™ app-controlled smart blending systems and Perfect Kitchen™ PRO app-controlled smart kitchen system.

On December 12, 2014, Perfect Company filed a suit against Adaptics Ltd., maker of the Drop Scale, for infringement of its ‘365 Patent. On December 2, 2016, the USPTO agreed to reexamine the ‘365 Patent based on arguments filed by Adaptics. Just seven months later, on July 10, 2017, that reexamination came to a successful resolution for Perfect Company.

“Patent reexaminations like this can take years, and often narrow both the claims and scope of the patent. We are thrilled with the breadth, speed and success of this reexamination,” says Michael Wallace, CEO of Perfect Company. “This reexamination successfully overcomes the prior art and arguments asserted by Adaptics in our ongoing litigation. We believe that this decision reaffirms our position as the leader in connected kitchen technology, which we will continue to aggressively defend.”

The ‘365 patent has been filed world-wide and has already issued in several countries. Last year, Perfect Company acquired Orange Chef’s Prep Pad IP, which included one issued patent. Perfect Company is actively filing new patents to cover its expanding technology offering.

 

 

Tovala Pairs Smart Appliance Innovation With Meal Kit Convenience

Last year at the Smart Kitchen Summit’s Startup Showcase, David Rabie stood next to a black box, one that resembled a microwave of the future or maybe even a toaster oven. Rabie’s company Tovala was making a smart steam oven that was connected to an app and able to perfectly cook certain meals with a catalog of food data and recipes. But the even bigger story behind Tovala wasn’t in the room at all; the company planned to launch an accompanying service designed to take on the meal kit delivery giants.

After a successful Kickstarter, Tovala is shipping to early backers and launching its flagship product offering to the masses this week. Tovala’s a smart steam oven comes with a ready-to-cook meal kit delivery subscription – focusing on drastically cutting down the time from food pickup to cooking to table. Using convection technology, a water chamber circulates heat to more evenly cook food and the oven is capable of steam, convection and broiling.

But the real innovation here is in the meal kit delivery service; unlike traditional meal kit delivery companies, Tovala sends customers their meals completely prepped and ready to stick in the accompanying smart oven. The customer scans the barcode using the connected app and tells the oven what you’re about to put inside, pulling the recipe down from the cloud to ensure your meal is cooked perfectly.

The meals might look a little like frozen dinners or airplane meals, but the results from early writeups like this one from Washington Post food writer Maura Judkis say otherwise.

Judkis writes, “I tried the Thai turkey meatballs with a hoisin glaze, served on cilantro brown rice with roasted asparagus, and was pleasantly surprised: The meatballs, studded with water chestnut, were crunchy and moist, the asparagus wasn’t overcooked, and a sambal sauce finish added a lot of kick. Another meal, miso salmon with roasted broccoli, delivered a velvety-soft piece of perfectly-done salmon”

Rabie spoke at last year’s Smart Kitchen Summit and described the target customer they are trying to lure – the ones who want even more convenience from a Blue Apron-style meal service. Perhaps the ones who stop using the service after just a few months – which according to the company’s S1 filings right before their IPO seemed to be a large majority.

“We’re trying to solve a common pain point – no time, want a delicious, healthy meal without the work. This seems to resonate across demographics.” – David Rabie, CEO, Tovala

Judkis also experimented with non-Tovala food, reporting that in general, the machine did well but (unsurprisingly) the ideal use for it was with the subscription service meals.

The Tovala Oven comes at a premium – $399 – but in theory could replace your wall oven if you subscribed to the meal service. It too has a higher sticker price than competitive meal kit delivery services, but not by much – charging $36 for 3 meals a week meals for a single person and $72 for the same amount for two people.

So far, Tovala is the only company combining a connected appliance with a prepared delivery service and is tapping into something core to our changing world. People have less time than ever but are more aware of the needs to eat healthy. For those willing to pay for convenience, the startup may be the answer.

SCiO Food Sensing Tech Moves Both Up Food Chain And Towards The Kitchen

Look up or down the food supply chain, and you’ll see an increasing use of technology. Dairy production is no different, where farmers are relying more on modern technology to optimize their milk output.

Perhaps the biggest lever dairy farmers can pull in creating better output is making sure dairy cow inputs – aka feed – is highly optimized. This is where Consumer Physics come in. That’s right, the company behind the somewhat controversial SCiO handheld near-infrared spectrometer has partnered with one of the world’s biggest food commodity conglomerates in Cargill to create a scanner that uses the same technology to analyze cattle forage – the corn silage and haylage fed to milk cows – for the amount of dry matter.

So what is dry matter and why does it matter?

Dry matter is the amount that remains after water is removed. It matters to farmers because the amount of dry matter in feed has a significant impact on milk production.

According to Shane St. Cyr, Cargill Strategic Dairy Services and Technology Scout for Cargill, changes in the dry matter means changes to “the ration. Cows may be getting too many nutrients which may not be a health or production risk, but it can certainly impact the bottom line. On the other hand, if the ration doesn’t match what we think is being fed to the cows, they may have a nutritional loss, and a cow can’t physically eat enough to make up for it.”

For Consumer Physics, this move into big ag is further validation for a company that continues to have skeptics. The reason for doubters is a canceled Kickstarter page that is a is a result of naming dispute with SCIO Health Analytics. Because of their Kickstarter struggles, some have called the company’s technology “too good to be true.”

Here’s the thing, though: Not only did the company finally ship its handheld food scanner to backers and has legitimate intellectual property that’s been validated by the issuance of US patents, but they keep partnering with large, established companies like Cargill and Analog Devices. These size companies would likely not launch a product without doing their due diligence.

I caught up with the CEO of Consumer Physics, Dror Sharon, who told me this latest deal is part of the company’s strategy to push the SCiO platform further up the food chain and into a wider set of products and applications. Fueling this move is the company’s app developer kit, which they released last year and, according to Sharon, is now in the hands of three thousand developers.

And while the company is working with everyone from agricultural health to mobile phone makers to get SCiO tech built directly into devices, Sharon sees the home appliance market – in particular, the kitchen appliance market – as the lynchpin for mass market adoption.

“The mass consumer strategy is to get it embedded into kitchen appliances,” Sharon told me. “Smart stoves, smart blenders, smart ovens, smart refrigerators. Anything that makes sense to have this sensing capability in it.”

He said that having SCiO technology could not only help consumers better understand the freshness of food as well as its nutritional content but also help them to reorder the type of food “that doesn’t have bar codes on it.”

“It will help you reorder the kind of apples you like.”

While Sharon didn’t say exactly when we can expect to see SCiO built into appliances, he did say Haier, a Chinese appliance conglomerate, showed off a proof of concept of a fridge with the SCiO technology in March.  The Haier news came just months after French manufacturer Terraillon announced they would build the SCiO technology into their Nutrismart scale.

So as the company continues to build credibility through more deals with established partners and to add commercial use cases to its application list, it also looks like it is slowly but surely pushing its technology towards the consumer kitchen.

If you want to see Dror Sharon talk about putting SCiO technology into kitchen appliances, he will be speaking at the Smart Kitchen Summit. Use the discount code SPOON to get 25% off of tickets. 

Lisa McManus Wants To Prevent Buyer’s Remorse In The Smart Kitchen

The Smart Kitchen Summit is the first event to tackle the future of food, cooking and the kitchen with leaders across food, tech, commerce, design, delivery and appliances. This series will highlight panelists and partners for the 2017 event, being held on October 10-11 at Benaroya Hall in Seattle. 

America’s Test Kitchen has been helping people learn to cook better food at home long before the word “smart” was attached to the kitchen or home. Originally a TV series started in 2001 by famous chef and editor-in-chief of Cook’s Illustrated Christopher Kimball, the brand has grown to include a digital empire of TV and web shows, online recipe content, cooking classes and kitchen equipment reviews.

Lisa McManus is the executive editor of equipment testing and ingredient tasting and the on-air “gadget guru” for ATK – which means her mission includes testing various types of kitchen tech and determine its worthiness as a tool for the home chef. As gear in the kitchen becomes more high-tech and connected, McManus and her team test “smart” cooking equipment alongside traditional versions. “It adds an extra challenge to assess how the technology enhances – or doesn’t – the experience of using that product,” she says.

McManus herself is a self-proclaimed obsessive researcher and hates the feeling of buyer’s remorse. When she bought her first car, she read exhaustively about the auto industry, studied different models and designs, watched crash-test dummy videos and even joined Zipcar for a year to be able to drive different cars without a salesperson sitting next to her. That dedication to finding the best solution spills over into her job at America’s Test Kitchen every day.

“I try to stand in for the home cook, and prevent other consumers from feeling stuck with sub-par products. I design and conduct tests, and share what I’ve learned, to help people find the most practical, functional gear.”

Interestingly, America’s Test Kitchen, which is owned by Boston Common Press, has built a powerful model for food media without resorting to heavy advertisements. There are no ads in the brand’s magazines and they have over a million paid subscribers between Cook’s Illustrated and Cook Country. McManus says the lack of advertisers allows the company to freely discuss products – the good, bad and the ugly – and be the strongest possible advocates for consumers, only recommending devices and gadgets that will really make cooking easier and food taste better.

As more startups look to capitalize on the digital craze around food videos and recipes, America’s Test Kitchen seems to have built a brand that’s adaptive to changing consumer demands and interests. Turning their eye to how technology is impacting the consumer kitchen is one way to do that.

“I’m really excited about the direction of the smart kitchen; right now I see a lot of creativity and energy in this field as it develops, not all of it practical, but that will happen over time,” McManus adds. “I’m sure tech is going to change how we all use our kitchens and prepare our meals, and what looks very futuristic and exclusive right now will become commonplace.”

The America’s Test Kitchen team might be excited about tech playing a bigger role in the kitchen, but there’s also a healthy dose of skepticism mixed in. McManus says she’s constantly looking how connectivity is going to solve a real problem instead of becoming a useless feature that renders the product more expensive but not more functional. Often, she says, things like the app might have been worked on for a while, but the actual cooking device is sub-par, or the database of recipes is limited and an afterthought. “How long before this product is no longer useful? Has the practical day-to-day usage been fully considered or does it make more work? Bottom line: Is the connectedness offering a real benefit that will become second nature, or is it just frills, bells and whistles?” 

Don’t miss Lisa McManus, executive editor at America’s Test Kitchen at the 2017 Smart Kitchen Summit. Check out the full list of speakers and to register for the Summit, use code ATK to get 25% off ticket prices.

The Smart Kitchen Summit takes place thanks to our sponsors; if you’re interested in sponsorship opportunities, reach out to the SKS team to discuss options. 

If you’d like to attend the Smart Kitchen Summit, you can still buy early bird tickets and get an additional 25% off by using the discount code SPOON here.