Back in September, news broke of a new company called Brava Home. At the time, details about the new startup were scarce, but Techcrunch and others reported that the company had raised $12 million from True Ventures to create what they were calling a “kitchen appliance”.
I guessed the mystery appliance was an oven, mostly because…well…the company responded to my inquiry with an email using the domain name “bravaoven.com”.
Turns out our crack team of investigators (again, me) was right: Brava is definitely making an oven.
According to a trademark filing uncovered by The Spoon, the company is working on smart oven that has a number of interesting features:
“Digital thermostat that automatically sets cooking conditions based on packaged food cooking instructions.” The Brava oven will have auto-programmed cooking routines based on the oven reading packaged food. I wouldn’t be surprised if Brava is working directly with food manufacturers to create the optimal cooking routines for the food.
“Oven control system consisting of a digital thermostat that can be controlled wirelessly from a remote location; software application for use on computers and hand-held devices to control oven systems in homes and businesses from a remote location.” Translation: app control of the oven.
“Remote video monitoring system consisting primarily of a camera and video monitor for recording and transmitting images and videos to remote locations.” Looks like the Brava oven will have an internal camera like the June Oven.
“Electric sensors; computer software for monitoring oven temperature and food in the oven, controlling the functioning of the oven and the operation of automation systems of an oven.” The oven will use sensors, which will include motion, humidity, temperature and light, to essentially automate the cook. Again sounds June-like.
“Electric countertop food preparation apparatus for cooking, baking, broiling, roasting, toasting, searing, browning, barbecuing and grilling food, namely, cooking ovens.” In case there was any doubt, this will be a countertop device.
As I stated above, The Brava sounds a lot like the June. The biggest discernible difference will be price, as the company indicated early on their first product will be a product for “everyone” and not the “super-rich”. This tells me it will probably come in well below the June’s $1500 and possibly even sub-$500.
Finally, one last bit of intrigue: The trademark is listed as “Status: 774 – Opposition Pending”, which means that someone has opposed their trademark. The who and why of anyone opposed to Brava’s trademark application is a mystery.
Hopefully we should know more later this year, as the company has indicated it will ship product sometime in 2017.