We’ve seen a lot of innovation in the way of kitchen appliances and gadgets. But what about the fixtures and structures in the kitchen like the countertops, cabinets and even the sink? Italian design studio Tiptic unveiled a work bench style kitchen countertop packed with technology to make meal prep easy and mess-free.
If voice control has become a must-have for hands-free control in the kitchen, gesture control is right behind. Tiptic’s smart kitchen countertop includes a hidden sink that is revealed with a “swipe up” motion. The counter surface begins to lower via a mechanism hidden underneath and a sink is revealed. Another swipe and the water turns on, an even more “hands-free” version of the tap-on faucets on the market today.
Beyond gesture control, the worktop also includes a kitchen scale that utilizes sensors to measure and weigh ingredients. The scale is also hidden behind the stone, visible only via a ring of light through the counter. The goal in the long term is to connect the sensors to a mobile recipe app in order to create a kind of guided cooking system. Does this sound familiar? It’s the same concept behind products like the Drop Kitchen scale, another smart kitchen product designed to take the guesswork out of cooking and using recipes.
The driving goal behind innovation in the smart kitchen has been to make it easier to cook good food in your own kitchen. But moving beyond the tools we use to cook and the appliances themselves, there’s a real need for our prep and storage areas to help us waste less food and make preparing a delicious homemade meal. When asked about Tiptic’s integration of technology and design, co-founder Tommaso Corà commented that they built the counter to avoid touching anything but the food, saying “…it’s very clean, it’s very natural, and it’s something a bit new but with existing technology.”
Check out the full story at Dezeen.
