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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

solid state cooking

Miele Shipping the Dialog, Their Oven With Solid State Cooking Tech, to 20 Countries

In 2017, Miele had attendees at Germany’s big appliance fair, IFA, raving with a demo of a new appliance called the Dialog.

The appliance, which uses solid state cooking technology instead of the more antiquated technology featured in microwave ovens, was an exciting development because it was the first time a high end consumer appliance brand had introduced a product with the cutting edge technology.

However, after 2017 we heard little about the Dialog. Sure, at IFA 2018 the German company talked up a meal delivery service through a partnership with another German company MChef, but, other than that, details of when the Dialog would be available were few and far between.

So imagine my surprise when Miele told me this month that the Dialog is now shipping in 20 countries. According to Miele spokeswoman Julie Cink, the Dialog is currently available in European countries such as “Germany (of course), Austria, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy or Great Britain.”

Cink said that in the second quarter of this year, the Dialog will be available in additional European countries such as France, Norway and Greece.

Still no word on when the Dialog will be available in the US. Miele’s executive director and namesake Markus Miele told me via email the holdup is because the required regulatory approval for the Dialog’s RF technology would require significant adaptations to the product.

“The regulations concerning the use of the frequencies are very different and so we have to modify the appliance (a lot),” wrote Miele.

The price tag on the Dialog is high, but in line with what you’d expect for a premium brand like Miele’s biggest product launch in years: 7,990 Euros.

MChef Meal Service Available Across Germany

I was also interested to find out that the meal delivery service we wrote about in 2018 is also available across Germany.

From Miele’s website:

“Customers can order individual dishes or three-course menus for the discerning from MChef, which are then shipped on elegant porcelain plates together with a matching wine to addresses throughout Germany.”

The meal service offers up to 20 different dishes which, according to Miele, are delivered via a “patented transport crate which guarantees freshness; used crockery is returned to the empty crate which is picked up and returned.”

Bottom line, the availability of the Dialog is a big deal and an overall win for solid state cooking. Most appliance companies I’ve talked to are working on developing their own RF cooking appliances, but have yet to push them to market because of the high price tag of the technology. With the Dialog now available, I expect that will put some pressure on other premium brands to look to accelerate their own pushes towards solid state cooking.

Scoop: Omidyar Invests in Markov, A Startup Building An AI To Change Cooking

Last week we learned about Spero Ventures, a new $100 million investment fund that had been spun out of the Omidyar Network. According to Forbes, the new venture fund has eBay founder Pierre Omidyar as its sole limited partner and counts a company called Markov as one of its first investments.

What exactly the still-stealth Markov does is a mystery, at least until you do a little digging. Markov’s team includes much of the founding team behind the retail point of sale startup Clover Network (including CEO Leonard Speiser), as well as engineers from the likes of Facebook, Linkedin, and Google. While neither Markov’s website nor Crunchbase details how much the company has raised (as of this writing Crunchbase didn’t even have Markov listed), the company subtly lets us know this information via Linkedin, where the company profile says they’ve raised $20 million.

What do they plan to build with that money? Markov’s website uses purposefully vague language about what exactly it does (“The Markov Corporation builds products that can see the world, understand it, and then take an action”), but does say they are building “convolutional neural networks and deep reinforcement learning combined with hardware to make magic.” Their Linkedin page indicates they are building AI that will automate hardware that does “boring work”.

AI. Automation. Neural networks. While that sounds like any number of pitches coming out of silicon valley nowadays, things got interesting for me when I saw how the company’s head of channel sales, Rich Miller, describes Markov: “Revolutionizing a space that hasn’t seen innovations in decades using Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and Computer Vision to change the way food is cooked in commercial applications.”

Based on that description, we can surmise that company is building AI for cooking. In a way that sounds similar to the technology behind June, which uses computer vision and machine learning to help their high-end consumer smart oven cook, only Miller indicates Markov’s target market is commercial kitchens.

All of which what makes what I found next even more interesting: two patent applications from the company’s founders. 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. This patent application includes an image that compares and contrasts cooking eggs with a traditional microwave:

To a system (using the technology in the patent) that more evenly applies energy:

Based on these clues it looks like Markov has developed an AI controlled electronic cooking appliance that utilizes infrared vision to gather data as part of a control system that more precisely and evenly applies electromagnetic energy to heat and cook food. While we have no idea if this is all Markov has developed – there might be a lot more they are working on – that they’ve applied for patents for this lets us know it’s what they see as one of their main core technologies.

It’s interesting to note that there has been significant IP built over the past couple years for new solid state cooking systems that use RF energy in the cooking process.  The demo from Miele at IFA showed off an oven that utilizes solid state cooking with technology that applies RF energy with surgical precision.  Early in 2017, the IBEX One, a solid state cooking appliance for pro kitchens, was announced as well with similar technology.

How exactly this Omidyar-invested company’s technology will be used in practice is where things could get interesting, so we’ll be keeping an eye out for further developments.

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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