How smart can a smart kitchen be? It seems there is no end of possibilities on the Internet of Things (IoT) front, according to Grace Dobush in this recent CEA blog post “13 Innovations for a Smarter Kitchen”.
The kitchen is proving to be veritable breeding ground for IoT innovations. And the market is ready, given the fact that one-fifth of households with broadband Internet plan to buy smart devices for their homes (Source: CEA study with Parks Associates). According to the study, over 20 million smart home devices were sold in 2014 – a number that will exceed 35 million by 2017. A good portion of those will be found in the kitchen and home appliances.
To give a sense of what’s up, Dobush provides a sampling of what CES (the Consumer Electronics Show) had to show for itself in the kitchen category:
- Integrated countertops with smart devices that can make recipe and meal suggestions, as well as sync with a fitness band to plan post-workout meals
- Smart crock-pots that can be managed via smartphones (Coffee makers too)
- Bluetooth scales integrated with recipe apps
- An electronic fork that vibrates and lights up when you’re eating too fast and track how long you take to eat and bites per minute
- Smart chopsticks that measure the freshness of cooking oil and safety of water
- Bluetooth-connected stove knobs with corresponding thermometers that attach to cookware
- A cocktail shaker and mixing stick integrated with a cocktail recipes app
- Smart jars that monitor content, use by dates and syncs with shopping list and fitness apps
- Soda carbonation device that integrates with a recipe app
- Smart cooking pans that monitor temperature, humidity and ingredient weight that integrated with recipe apps
- Smart kettles that precisely control water temperature
- Beverage container that tracks detailed calorie and nutritional information
Some of these are on the market; some have yet to see the light of day. So there’s no guarantee how these will fare with households. But it’s fun to consider the possibilities.