The camera-equipped smart oven: Never burn dinner again

Shawn Knight

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Electrolux is moving its camera-equipped smart oven from prototype status to full-on production model. Slated to arrive later this year, the nifty appliance has a few other tricks up its sleeve that could turn anyone into a culinary genius (ok, maybe that’s stretching it a bit far).

First showcased at the IFA trade show last September, the oven in question features a camera that streams a live feed of the cooking chamber to your mobile device so you can keep an eye on dinner while it’s being cooked. The appliance also allows for remote adjustments of temperature and cook time.

It seems like everything these days is marketed around sharing on social networks; Electrolux’s new oven is no different. Buyers will also receive an app that’ll link them to a community in which they can share kitchen tips, recipes and the like.

Electrolux COO Jan Brockmann believes 2015 may finally be the year that smart appliances really take off. Current penetration of connected appliances sits at just one percent but within the next five years, Brockmann believes that figure will climb to 10 percent.

While Electrolux isn’t a household name in the US, the company is the largest appliance maker in Europe.

This isn’t Electrolux’s first attempt at connected appliances. It worked with network specialist Ericsson AB to create “connected” devices like refrigerators with TV screens in the 1990s. As you can imagine, the timing was way off with that effort and it was canned after just a couple of years.

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For a family kitchen... get off your butt and go look through the oven window, stop wasting mobile battery power and bandwidth, but for a large busy kitchens, caterers, restaurants etc. why didn't they do this sooner?
 
For a family kitchen... get off your butt and go look through the oven window, stop wasting mobile battery power and bandwidth, but for a large busy kitchens, caterers, restaurants etc. why didn't they do this sooner?
Because real chefs know how long food takes to cook, and can check the food themselves just as fast as it'd take them to check an app.

My issue with this, surprise surprise, is that you can remotely adjust temperature and cooking time, leaving a beautiful vulnerability for someone to hack into and potentially burn your house down. No thanks, I'll stick with my regular oven. With a few cooking classes and some common sense, it's easy to learn how not to burn stuff in an oven.
 
No oven is going to burn your house down because the temperature is turned up. There are physical thermal cut out devices in all ovens to prevent a runaway scenario.
 
Because real chefs know how long food takes to cook, and can check the food themselves just as fast as it'd take them to check an app.

My issue with this, surprise surprise, is that you can remotely adjust temperature and cooking time, leaving a beautiful vulnerability for someone to hack into and potentially burn your house down. No thanks, I'll stick with my regular oven. With a few cooking classes and some common sense, it's easy to learn how not to burn stuff in an oven.
You are right about real chefs to a certain extent but they tend to work under immense pressure at times and they are human, anything that can help them would be welcome. Spoiled meals cost money.
 
For a family kitchen... get off your butt and go look through the oven window, stop wasting mobile battery power and bandwidth, but for a large busy kitchens, caterers, restaurants etc. why didn't they do this sooner?
The camera and looking through the window (if you are fancy enough to have an oven with a window - I am not) have the same flaw... you have to keep the window/lens clean. I have a toaster oven and I don't clean the glass door, this creates a false browning of the food, because the window is tinted brown from vapor/smoke deposits. This leads to thinking its done before it is.
 
I got a fancy oven which cooks for XX minutes and turns itself off when done. I never burn stuff the second time ;)
 
I got a fancy oven which cooks for XX minutes and turns itself off when done. I never burn stuff the second time ;)
This is a problem when you're a batchelor... you have to rely on costly hi-tech stuff. :D
Me? I'm married so I use a much more cost effective method... voice control, eg. "How's the food doing sweetheart?" :D(y)
Not that this method is always flawless but it works more often than not. :p
 
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