Smart Kitchens
by C. Rosenberg
Kitchen upgrades are no longer exclusively about new cabinets and appliances. In 2021, a kitchen upgrade most likely includes ‘smart’ in some capacity or other.
With all the work that goes on a kitchen – be it meal planning, food prep, or cleanup – introducing smart to your kitchen will increase efficiency and decrease your workload.
Continuous advances in technological applications include innovation in personal items, homes, and businesses. There’s no reason why your kitchen shouldn’t be in on the game.
Whether you choose to turn your kitchen into a digital hub or you want to maintain the old style feel with a bit of technological convenience, we have some great ideas to get you going.
Hands Off
Meal prep is, by definition, hands on – and that means getting your hands wet and sticky. What if you need to figure out how many ounces 34 grams are? Or how to substitute a missing ingredient? Not a great time to get hands on with Chef Google and get your phone sticky. This is where voice commands come in.
Siri, Alexa, and similar tech buddies will be happy to assist you. All you need to do is ask your question verbally and you’ll get your answers over your smart speakers.
You’ll need a mic and speaker to communicate with your tech friends in the kitchen, hook up to your choice of kitchen tech friends (Alexa and Siri are the most popular choices) and you’re good to go.
You can also use voice commands to add food items to your grocery list, and demand that your r smart gadgets start working or shut down.
You can also choose to have your favorite music pipe through the speakers to bring some cheer into the room.
Food Storage
The versatility and usefulness of a smart fridge means that it lead in smart kitchen trends. What if you could stroll down the supermarket aisle without scratching your head and wondering whether you still have 4 dozen eggs in your refrigerator, or if you need to stock up. With a smart fridge, you don’t have to rely on your somewhat faulty memory. Simply open your phone and communicate with your fridge to hear about its contents.
You can also ask your fridge for meal ideas based on the refrigerator’s contents. And how about this: Your fridge can help you keep track of expiration dates so that spotty fruit and spoiling milk are a thing of the past.
You can also create a family calendar and recipe index, display your favorite family photos, and scrawl messages for yourself or your family on the refrigerator’s smart board.
Done to Perfection
What’s it like to walk in the front door after a long day at work and be greeted with the aroma of a freshly cooked dinner? What’s the hack? A smart oven. Set your oven to go whenever you want it to, so that meals are ready just about when you walk into the home.
You can also share a picture of your desired dinner dish with your oven, and it’ll select the best cooking method, time, and temperature to get your dinner to look and taste just like that award winning dinner.
Cleanup Time
Wouldn’t it be nice if someone else did the mopping for you? Well, you can have someone – make that something – get your floors spick and span. Prices for mop and vacuum bots are pretty reasonable and do quite a decent job at keeping your floors clean. You may need to program your bot initially, but after you set it up the right way, it’s pretty independent, and will surprise you with clean floors you didn’t have to wet your hands to clean.
So, what are you going to about smart kitchens? How are you going to bring more smarts into your space?