How I made my kitchen smart and how I still want it to be

In 2021, I built my dream smart kitchen. It's been 3 years now and I love how my new kitchen has made cooking so much more fun and creative. But at the same time, this technology has not yet reached its full potential. Here are the best appliances I've added, how they've helped me cook more efficiently, and what I'd like to see in the future for a connected kitchen. Really Smart.

Initially, I had the dream of creating a space for my family of four that would make cooking easier and more enjoyable, and where they could develop their cooking skills. From meal planning to grocery shopping to prepping and cleaning, I wanted a dream kitchen of the future.

My house has an expanded galley kitchen, which is about 150 square feet, which is pretty small for South Carolina. My main goals were to reduce counter clutter and maximize cupboard space while squeezing in as many high-tech appliances as possible. Here's what I ended up with: And here's how it all worked.

Smart Microwave Oven: Thermador Pro Harmony Series

Owned by Bosch's parent company BSH, Thermador is recognized as one of the top prosumer product lines. I have always fantasized myself as some kind of home chef and this was my dream oven. For this selection, we prioritized features such as superior baking, roasting, and grilling in an oven equipped with a camera. They also praised innovations such as the star-shaped pedestal burner with ultra-low simmer function.

I got all of that and more. The oven's Home Connect app offers options for remote control, temperature monitoring with built-in probes, and voice control with Alexa and Google. Today, I have almost mastered controlling it with my voice. Convenient when you want to turn off the oven from the sofa. (However, I'm still stumped because the oven requires me to turn a knob to remote start to use any of these features.)

When it comes to stovetops, I really like induction, but it's just not practical in my house for a variety of reasons. I have a dream of importing this amazing ceramic countertop from Italy where the induction coil is invisible until you're cooking. Combined with this new wireless charging system from FreePower that can be recessed into your countertop, you'll have a very smart and very nice looking kitchen (albeit very expensive).

From a safety standpoint, I'm surprised there's still no better way to tell if you left the stove on other than using a third party device or putting a camera on the stove. Masu. (I use an Aqara G3 camera for this purpose. Its pan and tilt feature allows you to see the entire kitchen well.)

I saw a demo from IoT chip maker NXP at CES 2024. In this demo, the cooktop used various sensors, such as presence sensing, to automatically turn off burners if the pot was left on at high heat and the stove was unattended. This type of intelligence requires interoperability, which is still largely lacking in smart kitchens. However, with Matter adding support for home appliances and organizations like the Home Connectivity Alliance promoting connectivity between different brands, this future looks more promising.

Smart Refrigerator: Samsung Family Hub

I've been using the Samsung Family Hub smart refrigerator for five years and love it. Sure, sticking a giant Android tablet to the side of your refrigerator seemed silly back then, but 50 years later, it's really come into its own.

Thanks to the software update. Now you can watch live TV while cooking or planning your weekly meals in the fridge. The built-in camera (in some cases) identifies the food (parts) in your refrigerator and alerts you when it's about to expire. I also found the new Samsung Food app (found on my fridge and on my phone) to be useful for collecting recipes, managing food lists, creating meal plans, and following recipes as they cook.

Newer models of Family Hub have more cameras and AI to help recognize ingredients, but they still can't tell you everything about every food in your fridge. Often misidentifies products. For example, it consistently recognizes my whipped cream as a sports drink. Plus, those cameras can't see inside my pantry.

I want an automated system Really It knows what's in my fridge and pantry and automatically creates suggested recipes, meal plans, and grocery lists each week.

Perhaps the way forward here is a comprehensive food management solution that can be accessed from any screen or tablet and works by knowing what products you put in your shopping cart when ordering groceries online. It is a platform. At the end of the day, this feels like a software solution rather than a hardware solution.

When I purchased the Thermador oven, the company provided a free dishwasher. It also works with the Home Connect app to send alerts when complete, notify you when rinse aid is low, and connect you to online services to automatically reorder supplies. There's also remote control functionality and scheduling options (you can set the dishwasher to run at any time). Additionally, the dishwasher itself does a great job.

I used to have an LG dishwasher and was able to diagnose drain problems just by using an app, which saved me a lot of money on calls to repair people and hours of waiting in a call center. Ta. This is not a feature of Thermador. Although the problem can be diagnosed remotely, you still need to call someone. Yet, along with energy management, remote troubleshooting remains one of the biggest benefits of connecting appliances.

Dishwashers are already very advanced technologically and there isn't much room for obvious improvement. perhaps, jetsons– In the future, someone will come up with a Bot Dish that works like Samsung's Bot Chef from CES 2020 and loads the food for me.

Smart multifunctional cooking tool: Thermomix TM6

I have written and talked about the Thermomix TM6 in the following articles: The Verge in front. Without a doubt, it's the most useful gadget in my kitchen. A smart countertop device with 28 cooking functions and a built-in touchscreen for guided cooking. So this is essentially a blender that can cook, chop, blend, steam, knead, sauté, grind, whisk, sous vide, and slow cook. – Cooks, etc.

it doesn't do that all These are really well made. (Sautéing is spotty, and unless you use a new cutter accessory, the chopping often ends up looking like baby food.) But as a central place to do most of your meal prep, this is revolutionary . It also costs $1,500 and you have to pay $30 a year to get the guided cooking/recipe feature, but it's worth it for me.

Like almost all smart countertop kitchen gadgets, the Thermomix is ​​siled within its own ecosystem. Preheating instructions cannot be sent to the Thermador oven. You also cannot turn off the oven remotely using voice or an app. There is no way to import recipes from other sources. If you want to use its great guided cooking interface, you should use its (extensive) collection of recipes. In the future, I would like to have a Thermomix that works in conjunction with other smart kitchens.

Smart Faucet: Moen Faucet

Moen Smart Faucet is a connected, hands-free, motion-activated, voice-controlled kitchen faucet. This is the most used gadget in my kitchen and my whole family loves it.

Wave your hand to turn on and off the water. Use Alexa or Google to tell you to dispense exact amounts (tablespoons/cups) at a specific temperature, or to start pouring water into the sink while you take the roast out of the oven to bring the pot to boiling water. Just throw it in. He's one of those gadgets in the kitchen that I really miss when I'm not at home.

My model is an old model. Moen's latest faucet allows you to adjust the temperature with the movement of your hands. However, I'm not sure if I really need to make the faucet any more complicated.

Smart coffee maker “Café Affetto fully automatic espresso machine”

The Café Affetto from GE Appliances is a $630 smart coffee maker that is a staple in my kitchen. My husband and I love our morning Americano and latte respectively. Yes, it's expensive, but a latte at a coffee shop costs him $7.

Its smart features are very limited, and the only thing the unconnected automatic espresso maker really offers is the option to adjust the grind time and amount through the SmartHQ app. However, the My Cup feature allows you to customize your preferred coffee order (two long espressos) within the app, and it works very well.

Voice control and automation are missing here. We want to connect your coffee maker to your smart morning routine. So when the alarm goes off, the lights come on, and the radio starts playing, Cafe Affetto starts making espresso.

There are several high-end built-in coffee machines from Bosch and Thermador that can do this. Bosch announced its first connected countertop model at this year's CES, but it's not yet available for purchase, so that wish may come true sooner rather than later.

I also spent time with various other connected kitchen gadgets I tested The Verge. These include the Tovala Smart Countertop Oven, GE Profile Smart Mixer, Typhur Smart Air Fryer, Instant Pot Pro, and GE Profile Smart Smoker. (You can hear about my early impressions of his last three works in the latest episode) The Verge Cast. )

The common theme across all of these is that they are countertop gadgets with their own apps, ecosystems, and specific features. They're good at what they do, but so far they haven't made an impact on the broader smart kitchen ecosystem where appliances can communicate with each other.

There is a lot of potential in the smart kitchen space, but we need to increase interoperability and reduce reliance on individual apps to control each device. This is a frustration that occurs regularly, not just in the kitchen, but throughout the smart home. This is the problem that developments like Matter, the Home Connectivity Alliance, and Fresco's new KitchenOS platform are trying to solve.

Smart kitchens have many similarities with smart homes.But it's probably the most technologically advanced space in our homes. in front As we begin to connect home appliances to the internet, the kitchen comes with its own challenges. This is a demanding and active area with many single-purpose devices, making it much more difficult to innovate and improve an already very capable machine.

Eventually, improved interoperability between gadgets and further innovation in software (potentially powered by generative AI) could make some of my wishes come true. But the smart kitchen of 2024 is still in its infancy. If that's not the case, we recommend future-proofing yourself by choosing Wi-Fi connectivity when purchasing major home appliances. In the meantime, it's better to spend money on individual gadgets with features that meet your current needs and wait until your smart kitchen is truly ready for prime time.

Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy/The Verge