Delivering on the promise of the smart kitchen

Convenience, the main driver of commercial technological products, has reached new horizons as artificial intelligence establishes its presence in our homes.

The kitchen that we know of today will be radically changed in the next 10 or so years and will potentially be smart enough to cook us a meal with a simple voice command, similar to ordering food at a restaurant.

The growing popularity of voice-controlled smart home assistants such as Amazon Alexa and Google Home has created a platform for companies to develop products that allow us to perform everyday tasks with just our voice. Features such as voice-activated food and drinks deliveries have already been developed, such as ordering Domino’s pizza through Alexa, and it would not be surprising to see voice control incorporated in kitchen appliances in the future.

Culinary convenience

The biggest challenge facing smart homes is how to deliver convenience. While the idea of voice control can be exciting for some, it is not always the most efficient way of achieving a task. If you were in the kitchen, it would likely be quicker to pre-heat the oven by turning a dial than using your voice to perform the same task.

A lot of tech companies that have dabbled with smart products or features fail to understand this and subsequently complicate simple methods as opposed to refining them.

New features should be integrated with consumer’s lives seamlessly, such as apps where a smart speaker teaches you how to cook and allows you to order the ingredients for a recipe using your voice. Successful features or products can become a gateway to the company’s other smart products as voice-controlled speakers become increasingly integrated in households.

Many consumers still consider the idea of smart homes as futuristic and potentially groundbreaking but adoption of smart home assistants remains low due to their high price points and lack of perceived useful features. Manufacturers of voice-controlled smart home speakers are addressing this issue, with newer versions having considerably lower price points than their predecessors. Many tech companies are looking to introduce new smart home features and products, so it looks like we are just at the tip of the iceberg.