LAS VEGAS (AP) – Tell your refrigerator about your dietary preferences and it’ll concoct a recipe plan for the coming week, sending a shopping list to your smartphone when it notices you’ve run out of the right ingredients.
Counter-top robotic arms help chop veggies. Artificially intelligent oven cameras and internet-connected meat thermometers keep track of what’s cooking. And then – voila! – a stove-top camera can show off your culinary creations on Instagram.
These are some of the new “smart kitchen” tech features on display this week at the CES gadget show in Las Vegas. Appliance-makers are competing with one another to show off futuristic kitchen innovations they hope might resonate with younger consumers, knowing that once these appliances squeeze themselves into a home, they could stay for a while.
Just don’t expect to get much help at your local Home Depot anytime soon. There’s also the challenge of getting consumers interested and keeping up with rapid changes in technology.
“The problem is that refrigerators are 10-year devices,” said food technology analyst Michael Wolf, who hosts a podcast on smart kitchens. “The sales personnel haven’t really asked about smart features and consumers really aren’t asking for them.”