Kitchen & Bath Business - November/December 2018 - 18

Tech Savvy

The Appliance
Revolution
A look at the trends and
foresights explored at the
2018 Smart Kitchen Summit
ACCORDING TO THE INTERNATIONAL DATA

CORP.'S Worldwide Quarterly Smart Home
Device Tracker, the smart home market is forecast to be nearly 1.3 billion devices by 2022. The
fourth-annual Smart Kitchen Summit, which recently took place in Seattle, hosted many of these
up-and-coming players in the kitchen space and
facilitated talks and speculations about emerging
trends for this rapidly growing industry.

SETTING A SPARK

The kitchen arguably has seen the most change in
the household over the past century. Appliances
have evolved to be more efficient and consistent;
and these qualities have freed up valuable hours -
particularly for some women who used to spend
a majority of their day cooking. Back then, this
extra time played a small part in helping women
enter the workforce, and today smart appliances
are changing the way people live and cook.
"For the most part, our kitchens have not
changed since then,"said Bruce Thompson of Urbaneer, an innovation company working to intersect digital technology and the home. "I am wondering if we are finally at a similar point we were
back then, when the kitchen transformed society."
Matt Van Horn, the CEO and co-founder of
June, maker of the June Intelligent Oven, wanted
to solve the widespread problem of struggling to
put food on the table during busy weeknights. He
and several other entrepreneurs are addressing
not only more convenient meals but how to help
consumers make quality and healthy food.
"We feel like there's an invisible leash that ties
people to their kitchens,"said Van Horn."The goal
for us [smart appliance brands] is to untether you."
Along with designing technology that can cook
quickly and more healthily than ever before, appliance companies are teaming up with mealdelivery services. This gives consumers not only
the convenience of having food delivered to their
door, but it also helps them decide what to make
and teaches them how to make it - without the
frustration or time needed to interpret a recipe.

1 SILO, the deep vacuumsealer system, combines onetouch vacuum storage with
high-quality plastic containers
to keep food fresh up to five
times longer than conventional
storage. It also has Alexa built
in for easy voice interface.
Silo's app includes inventory
and consumption tracking,
storage suggestions and automated food repurchase.

1
2

2 Now partnering with the
Home Connect platform for
appliances, CHEFLING's
AI-driven kitchen assistant app
features inventory organization,
intuitive recipe suggestions
and shopping list management
and ordering. Consumers
can use the Home Connect
functionalities in the Chefling
app to adjust settings such as
temperature, mode and timing
of all relevant smart home appliances to match the selected
recipe instructions.

3
4

3 ROTIMATIC is the world's
first AI-enabled flatbreadmaking kitchen robot that
measures, kneads, rolls, cooks
and puffs flatbreads in just 90
seconds. Users control the ingredients; all they need is flour,
oil and water to make a flatbread that is free of additives,
chemicals or preservatives.
4 GE APPLIANCES is
collaborating with HESTAN
Smart Cooking on its new line
of Café appliances. This appguided cooking system with
temperature-sensing smart
cookware will automatically
adjust the pan temperature
as the user proceeds through
each video-guided recipe.
Users can also select the
"Control Mode" feature in the
Hestan Cue or Café app to
set the burner to a precise
temperature.
5 LG ELECTRONICS
announced the integration
of smart kitchen platform
services Innit and SideChef
with select 2018 smart ovens
and ranges. Users can select
personalized meals from a
combined 18,000 recipes
available via the Innit and
SideChef apps. Once a recipe
is selected, users can easily
access step-by-step video
instructions and automatically
send them to the LG range
or oven.
By ERINN LOUCKS

5
This type of partnership will encourage users to eat at home more, waste
less food and make healthier decisions. If the majority of America has technology that can help them do all three, developers are predicting that this
could truly cause lasting and far-reaching benefits in a time-starved society.
PREDICTING THE FUTURE

In the coming years, industry experts are forecasting that the kitchen will
become less like just a tool and more like a service. According to Thompson,
the smart kitchen will incorporate six C's:
"The Cloud. The kitchen will remember our choices and know what we
want when we want it, like an oven turning on at a preset time.
"Connectivity. Appliances will come standard with Wi-Fi connectivity so
users can control them remotely, even if that means from another room
where they are entertaining.
"Commerce Enabled. The partnerships between meal kit companies and
appliances will continue to grow, as well as the popularity of daily deliveries of ingredients.
"Compact Design. Less will be more in the future kitchen, with more
appliances being able to multi-task.
"Configurability. The future kitchen will be more versatile and movable with
possibilities like fully wireless appliances on the horizon.
"Curated. Every kitchen will be personal to its user and easily adjustable.

Kitchen & Bath Business / NOV.-DEC. 2018 / KBBONLINE.COM / The official publication of KBIS (KBIS.com)

http://www.KBBONLINE.COM http://www.KBIS.com

Kitchen & Bath Business - November/December 2018

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