We’re Still Trying To Figure Out Who Thought This Was A Good Idea.
With every passing year, more and more products are connected to the Internet of Things that just.. Don’t make sense to us, and to many of you as well. When we reviewed our last list of IoT gadgets, you wanted more. So we’re looking at another 10 kitchen gadgets that don’t make any sense for being connected to the internet, having an app or being ‘smart’ in some fashion.
Name: HidrateSpark TAP
Price: $20
What It’s Supposed To Do: HidrateSpark TAP - the smart water bottle that tracks your water intake through the HidrateSpark App and glows to remind you to drink. Our powerful Tap To Track technology updates your water intake on the HidrateSpark App by simply tapping your smartphone to the NFC Tag. HidrateSpark TAP glows to remind you to drink and with our Tap to Track technology you can easily track a full bottle when you tap your phone to the NFC tag on the bottle. Keeping your daily goal updated as you go. Opt in for our fun HidrateSpark App notifications to help you stay on track. Compete with friends in fun hydration challenges and earn trophies for your collection.
Why We Don’t Care For It: Why do we need a water bottle to glow or vibrate? There’s bullet journals, there’s phone apps, there’s even the old school method of just making a mark somewhere. What’s the need for an NFC tag attached to bottle? Although the price isn’t bad, it still doesn’t make much sense to us.
Link: https://hidratespark.com/
Name: Lg CLOI.
Price: Price currently unknown.
What It’s Supposed To Do: CLOI for the home is meant to be an all in one system, connecting your thermostat, your appliances and the rest of your home.
Why We Don’t Care For It: When showing off the CLOI for the first time, the poor thing didn’t function. It wasn’t a matter of misunderstanding the commands given, nor was it an issue of the wi-fi not working. CLOI flat out refused to respond to the presenter. As of right now, although the CLOI guide bots and server bots are both functional, the CLOI home hub hasn’t been introduced to the market, and we’re grateful for it.
Link: LG ROBOTIC PRODUCTS | LG NEWSROOM
LG CLOi robots will be working together to improve our life - Personal Robots
Name: Revolution InstaGLO R270 Toaster
Price: $400
What It’s Supposed To Do: The InstaGLO toaster has a special diamond shaped heating element inside that quickly toasts the outside of any food, and leaves the inside sweet and soft. It also has a touchscreen that can handle 34 different types of bread and save 10 of your favorites.
Why We Don’t Care For It: This is another “just why?” It’s not that we’re against it so much as us wondering why we need it. Sure you can test out all of the functions and find out precisely how toasted and crisp you want your bread, but.. Why?
Link: Revolution InstaGLO R270 Toaster | Williams Sonoma (williams-sonoma.com)
Name: ANOVA Precision Oven
Price: $600
What It’s Supposed To Do: The ANOVA is a combi oven, or a combination of steam and convection cooking, as well as offering a sousvide setting. It has a quick start menu that allows you to quickly select what you want it to do, be it convection baking, broiling, baking, proofing, air frying or steam. It can also connect to Google or Alexa, although it does offer more capability when working with Alexa.
Why We Don’t Care For It: Can turn itself on in the middle of the night & it advertises itself for you to be able to set your food to cook in it at the beginning of the day and set it to cook when you’re ready. The problem here is that many of us will typically include a fish or meat with our dinner. Which can’t be left out all day.
Link: Anova Precision™ Oven - Anova Culinary
Name: Barsys 2.0 +
Price: $1,500
What It’s Supposed To Do: The Barsys is a product we’ve covered in the past, but in theory, it’s been updated and improved! It’s meant to be a self-contained system where you load in liquors of your choice and use the app to tell it what type of drink you want. The app controlling the system is now better than before, and it’s easier to mix your own drinks using the app for precise amounts.
Why We Don’t Care For It: The app controlling the system seems to be the primary thing that’s been worked on in the ‘+’ version, but since that was our primary concern, we’re good with that. Unfortunately, the bluetooth connecting it to your phone still seems to be buggy and the app still has its detractors even since the update.
Link: Barsys 2.0+ (thebarsys.com)
Name: SAMSUNG BESPOKE Cube Air Purifier,
Price: $549
What It’s Supposed To Do: The Samsung Bespoke Cube is an air purifier that’s designed to fit into your home. It has interchangeable front panels that make it easy to blend into your home. More importantly it can sense impurities and automatically boosts the purification intensity. On the app it will show the real time levels within your home by monitoring its micro air sensor. Better, it has a multi-layered HEPA system to help trap dust, pollen and pet dander as well as odors. Easily check and manage your purification settings and filters with the SmartThings App and use the app to buy replacement filters when needed
Why We Don’t Care For It: We’re not averse to the concept. It’s a filter for your home that helps whether it’s tree pollen or smog. What bugs us is that it’s connected to Wi-Fi and voice connected. Why? Why is it needed?
Name: Tyent Undercounter
Price: $3,250
What It’s Supposed To Do: The Tyent UC11 is an under the counter water ionizer. It requires its own plug and offers ionized water after filtering it. It allows you to set your water to be more acidic, alkaline if you dont care for the taste of minerals or metals in your water.
Why We Don’t Care For It: We love the concept. Having the ability to alter your water to your taste, or having a guaranteed filtration system is fantastic. What bothers us is the idea that everyone is going to use all of the different features. When faced with something with 55 different options (yes, that’s their claim) how many are you going to use? And if you don’t know which ones are what you or your family need? It seems like something that is more complicated than what it needs to be in our opinion.
Link: Amazon.com: Tyent Undercounter-11-Plate Turbo Extreme by Tyent : Tools & Home Improvement
Name: 4T7 Smart Cutting Board
Price: $169
What It’s Supposed To Do: The 4T7 cutting board is multiple pieces of kitchenware in one. It comes with a cutting board, a defrosting board, a digital ingredient scale, a timer, and a magnetic knife holder on the back. Plus, it has its own app with recipes, guides and a community to connect to as you learn, or just to try out different recipes with others.
Why We Don’t Care For It: It’s the app. The rest of it is amazing. It’s the app we can’t get our heads around. Was it just a way to tack on an additional fee? To set up what sounds like a digital cookbook? To us, it seems like if you’re a home cook who finds a cutting board like this useful, you’re already going to have a wide number of recipes that work for you.
Link: 4T7 Muti-function Smart Cutting Board Built-in Scale and Kitchen Timer
Name: Zega Intelligent Cookware
Price: $149
What It’s Supposed To Do: This is a double wall insulated pot that can have the heat turned off after it comes up to temperature. It keeps cooking the food inside of it and alerts you when its done.
Why We Don’t Care For It: The knob is connected to Bluetooth. This means that it can connect to your phone, and tell you that your food is done cooking. Which is nifty. But once again, why? The idea of not needing to tend your food also leaves us concerned. Too many dishes need to be watched over to keep them from boiling over or sticking to the bottom of the pot. And you have to charge the knob when all is said and done. So, we’re saying nifty, but not necessarily needed.
Link: Zega Intelligent Cookware – Zega Cookware US
How it works – Zega Cookware US
Name: Nespresso Prodigo
Price: $266
What It’s Supposed To Do: The Prodigo is a coffee machine. It has a built in milk frother for all sorts of recipes, a rotating water tank and automatic cartridge ejector. It also keeps track of how many k-cups you have, and when it needs water or maintenance.
Why We Don’t Care For It: well.. We can’t actually find a reason for it. It’s coffee after all, and that’s something many of us love. We will say though that we question why the smart options are needed. We have had coffee machines that could keep track of when to make your coffee for decades. As to making ones that are meant for keeping track of what k-cups you need, that’s pretty easy too? So it’s less of a “we don’t like it” to “How necessary is it?”
Link : Prodigio Coffee Machine | Nespresso
Most of these for us seem to boil down to “why??” Why attach these things to the internet when it’s not /needed/ for the item to do its work. Some of them are fantastically useful, but the connection to the Internet of Things doesn’t make much sense to us. Let us know in the comments below or over on our Facebook page what your thoughts are and which if any of these you would purchase.
If it’s your Core Appliances that are giving you hell, we can help. Reach out to us on our contact page or by giving us a call at ((214) 599-0055 ) to set up an appointment that works for you. Whether it’s a smart appliance or one that’s as old as you, we’ll work with you to