Retail Observer

RETAILOBSERVER.COM JANUARY 2017 36 A s the kitchen, the heart of the home, becomes one of the last areas to become "smart", homeowners are warily eyeing this latest trend with suspicion and caution. Is the Internet of Things going to improve people's lives or create a complicated tangle of interconnected devices that we don't really need to live and cook better? With the likes of the Amazon Echo, Samsung Smart Hub Refrigerator and app-controlled ovens by Whirlpool, GE and Dacor, we're already witnessing a convergence between consumer electronics and kitchen appliances, and consequently, the evolution of the smart kitchen. The Echo, a wireless speaker and voice command device, is allowing people to talk to their kitchen and set recipe instructions just by using their voice. Allrecipes recently introduced an Amazon Alexa skill, so Amazon's virtual assistant can now guide you through recipes, while you cook, hands-free. SideChef, a popular step-by-step cooking app, has a voice control feature and commands for hands-free cooking. This smart technology isn't just being introduced in the kitchen, it's also happening in the living room, with the Samsung Smart Hub letting consumers enjoy music, TV, news and weather across all Samsung- compatible devices. Software, not hardware, will be the driving force behind the smart kitchen experience. Perhaps the greatest benefit from this will be our improved health; cloud computing provides the means for us to track and connect our personal dietary and nutritional information. This data, from mobile apps such as Argus, Myfitnesspal, Withings and iHealth, can then be integrated with your cooking experience. Software will make it easier to manage your health based on your own specific tastes and dietary preferences, and just like we use Fitbit to track our steps, we'll use our kitchen to track our carbs, fats and proteins. As massive amounts of this data begins to move to the cloud from people all over the world, it will provide tremendously valuable insights for health scientists. In terms of cooking, smart kitchen products have been focusing and will continue to focus on the key element in the kitchen we've all been using for millennia: recipes. As modern consumers, our meal times play an important part in our work-life balance. A whole market has emerged based on meal planning, solving the problem of busy individuals who want healthy home-cooked food but are pressed for time. Blue Apron, Chef'd and Sun Basket are companies that will let you tailor your own menus exactly to your taste to cook and then deliver ingredients straight to your door so you don't have to worry about the weekly grocery shop. Food makers are also looking to enter the new kitchen through meal-planning and automated ingredient delivery, while forward thinking appliance manufacturers will help enable this and make sure not to miss a piece of the action. Consequently, new smart kitchen products will center around recipes. Recipes and all their variables will be in machine language that will send the instructions to the appliances, which will use sensors and the abundance of data to help the home chef follow the recipe and cook the meal. UPC codes, QR codes and NFC technology will make for a more streamlined cooking experience as instructions can be automatically transferred from package to cloud to appliance. Clearly, the most successful products will be those that allow users to cook the recipes they love with the easiest and smoothest experience in the kitchen. This will largely depend on the use of sensors in cooking, the time users will save using the product, and, of course, the quality and the flavor of the ingredients. When appliances cook food perfectly for us, every time, according to our personal tastes and without error, we'll empower more people to cook better. Improved sensors connected to software that tells us what we need to do and when will get us there. Can technology make us better cooks? Sure, great chefs and home cooks have their own time-tested methods and tricks with no need for the technology, but for the rest of us, we're living in an increasingly technologically advanced world that can help us become more efficient. For the new generation, in particular, having grown up with technology integrated in every aspect of their lives, the only part that's missing is the cooking aspect. This new, smart technology in the kitchen will open a whole new world to them that will help them learn to cook and eat better and healthier than prior generations. Steve Joseph Connected Appliances Steve Joseph is chief product officer at SideChef, Inc., a kitchen technology company, which produces an award- winning step-by-step cooking app, smart kitchen software for manufacturers, and connects appliances to the IoT. Prior to SideChef, Steve was president of Dacor, leading the design and development of the first smart, connected ovens and ranges, winning Best in Show KBIS and Best of CES Home. RO CONNECTED EVOLUTION OR CONVOLUTION IN THE KITCHEN?

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