Get ready for the smart kitchen
We have the desire to cook, but we don’t have the time. We love photo-worthy cuisine, but we don’t understand how to make it ourselves.
Such are the issues that plague today’s home cooks.
At the second annual Smart Kitchen Summit, held earlier this month in Seattle to address the kitchen of tomorrow, the old guard collided with the new — a food-tech-science community in the making — in an attempt to discuss these concerns.
Some of the biggest names in the space addressed the crowd, from “Modernist Cuisine” author Nathan Myhrvold and J. Kenji Lopez-Alt of cooking website Serious Eats to HGTV’s “Smart Kitchen” specialist Carley Knobloch. And from General Electric to Juicero, all generations were covered.
“Large manufacturers believe the kitchen is ripe for technology,” said conference organizer Michael Wolf, a smart-home analyst. It’s clear that there’s a curiosity around the so-called “connected kitchen”; compared to last year’s inaugural event, the summit’s attendance was up about 60 percent.
High-profile startups like Innit — creators of smart-kitchen software — are making a case that there’s room to innovate, evident at the startup showcase, where 3D printers were spitting out spheres of liquid flavor and cocktails were being crafted Nespresso-style.
It’s still early days, though, and one purpose of the summit was to dissect the challenges of making this new technology accessible enough for people to willingly adopt.
“People don’t want to open six apps to get dinner on the table,” said Innit CEO and co-founder Kevin Brown in a panel discussion. In other words, a lot needs to happen before every appliance in the kitchen is speaking the same language.
In the meantime, however, Wolf says there will be stand-alone devices that will address very specific passions that don’t rely on the interconnected ecosystem. And your future kitchen will be here sooner than you think.
With that, here are five things you should know about the looming arrival of the smart kitchen.
1. Matt Damon had the right idea in “The Martian.”
Or, better stated: If the apocalypse is coming, you might be able to survive on produce grown inside the home. Using techniques like aquaponics, hydroponics and aeroponics, it’s possible to grow fresh greens, herbs and vegetables with little more than counter or wall space and LED lights to simulate sunlight. No soil and very little water needed.
Companies like 4-year-old Grove Labs and newcomers SproutsIO (pictured above) and Everblume are using different systems to produce a similar result: dinner (or at the very least, a salad). And plenty of others are getting in the game, too.
The growing systems are connected to apps that allow you to do everything from order seeds and tailor the profile of the produce to interact with an online community. This is a geeked-out green thumb.
3. The most powerful cooking tool will be your voice.
“Alexa, make me a roast chicken, skin extra crispy, please.” Alexa is the name of the voice inside Amazon’s Echo (above), and already she can do things like re-order your Amazon groceries, recommend a recipe or tell you what booze is in a manhattan. And she’s getting smarter as she grows.
Eventually, there might be an Echo in every room to help with those arduous tasks like turning off the light or closing the blinds. For now, those who keep company with Alexa generally keep her in the kitchen — the hub of the home and all — and while it might seem far-fetched, at some point she’ll likely be able to power and talk to all of your connected kitchen devices.
4. Millennials will rule the smart kitchen.
They love to talk about food. They love to wait in line for food. They love to photograph food. But do they cook the food? More often than not, the answer is no. But that’s not necessarily because they don’t want to. At a few panels, including one with Tiffany Lo of Buzzfeed’s Tasty — generator of those sped-up cooking videos that litter your Facebook feed — the Millennial cooking conundrum was explained, and it looks something like this: Many Millennials grew up with two working parents, so unlike previous generations that had someone cooking at home, they never really learned how to get behind the stove. Now, despite their fascination, they’re nervous to do so lest they create something subpar that isn’t totally Instagram-worthy (see note above on perfection breeding confidence).
Smart cooking devices that will produce impressive meals with a fraction of the effort are, quite literally, made for the Millennial cook (and let’s be honest, most of them are being built by the Millennial engineer). They will be the enthusiastic adopters before other generations follow suit.
5. “Smart” doesn’t always mean ... smart.
The benefits of most smart kitchen innovation are clear, from sustainability to education. But then there are those devices, for example, that require you to prep each ingredient, load it into one of seven separate containers (seven!) and command it to cook with your phone. That’s simply creating more work to feel like you’re doing less. Also, you need to be a serious enthusiast to want to purchase a “connected cider maker.” And I’m still not sold on the “Keurig of tortillas” (though admittedly I have yet to try the product).
Overall, however, there’s some pretty cool stuff on the horizon. And if a growing, overly excited conference crowd is any indication, we’re only beginning to scratch the surface of what’s to come.