SUPER-SMART APPLIANCES
Voice-controlled cooking
In 2019, LG and Electrolux will release cutting-edge kitchen appliances that, linked to Google Assistant and/or Amazon’s Alexa, will allow you to pre-heat and adjust your oven, hob and hood simply by talking to them. Both manufacturers are partnered with Innit, a recipe, nutrition and meal-planning app, which will allow you to ask for instructions – for example, how to roast a chicken – then load them into your oven without touching a dial. ‘Having that voice function is handy if you’ve got mucky hands and want to flip a door down,’ says Tom Cooper, MD at grocery-replenishment app Pantri. But high-end kit, like LG’S Signature Kitchen Suite will cost big bucks. At a lower entry level, Cooper sees Amazon’s Echo Show
– an Alexa voicecontrolled tablet – as the key that may unlock the voice-controlled kitchen for the masses. The Echo Show is already proving its worth in the kitchen by allowing cooks to set timers out loud and pull down videos of recipe tutorials. But as more everyday appliances, such as smart kettles and coffee machines that connect automatically with Alexa appear (and as Amazon itself releases its own kitchen appliances, such as the Amazonbasics microwave), the Echo Show may become the go-to kitchen hub. ‘It’s £50 to put a little Amazon Echo speaker in your kitchen, or £200 for a screen, and then you have all these appliances that connect through it,’ says Cooper.
First mass-market smart appliance?
The Amazonbasics microwave (amazon.com) is a voice-activated potential game-changer. Over 20% of UK households already own a voice assistant, such as Amazon’s Alexa (or Google Home with Google Assistant) and, retailing at only $59.99 (no UK launch date – yet), this microwave could become the first mass-market smart appliance. To Chris Albrecht, managing editor at food-tech bible The Spoon (thespoon.tech), this traditionally tricky piece of kitchen equipment is perfect for such automation. ‘Tell it, “cook two potatoes” and it promises to do just that. No more blasting everything on high in 30-second increments. And it will keep adding presets to its database, so you can get customised cooking for packaged goods.’
Speedy slow cooking
Forget clunky 1970s pressure cookers, the electric, fully programmable Instant Pot (around £119, instantpot. co.uk) claims it can cook your favourite meals up to six times faster but using up to 70% less energy.
Meal-planning fridge
Camera-enabled, so you can see what is in it (and tag items with their expiry dates), connected to Good Food (bbcgoodfood. com)
for recipe ideas and supermarket apps for the ingredients, the Samsung Family Hub Multi-door 550l fridge-freezer (£4,499, samsung.com) – controlled from its touchscreen or your phone – enables you to meal-plan, auto-generate shopping lists and shop in a few clicks.
Cook-a-vision
Controlled from a phone app or its door – a 48cm touchscreen from where you can also browse the web – Hoover’s Vision oven (£1,450) is at the forefront of camera-enabled oven technology. Using the camera, you can see how your food is cooking without opening the door and losing heat. ‘You could put the Good Food app on it to look at recipes,’ enthuses Cooper, ‘and use the oven camera to upload pics to social media.’
New kitchen gadgets will allow you to preheat and adjust your oven without touching a dial