From ‘kalchatti’ to Wi-Fi crockpot, modern Indian kitchens are evolving to combine emerging and wireless technologies with tradition
Our Indian kitchens are becoming increasingly smart, if not yet for robots. As much as we use traditional cookware handed down by our grandmothers, we brought Wi-Fi and an Alexa-enabled crockpot and blender. Our modular kitchens have become integrated spaces that embed smart appliances into kitchen units.
(Sign up for TODAY’s Cache, our technology newsletter, for insights on emerging topics at the intersection of technology, business and policy. Click here to subscribe for free.)
Even the refrigerator is no longer just a place to store food. Costing a little over ₹2,00,000, these smart refrigerators compile shopping lists, play videos and can even read news, to say the least. Meanwhile, Amazon’s first home service robot, Astro, gives full-time monitoring, checks in on the kitchen, and even gives pets their favorite treats.
under the hood
Intelligent Apps (or i-apps) Part of this movement is collecting user data (such as usage patterns and settings preferences) to enable consumers to monitor their kitchen and home appliances with a simple glance at their smartphone; We’ve seen this with fully automatic washing machines, floor cleaners, sous vide appliances, wine aerators, refrigerators, ovens and broilers, exhaust systems and crockpots.
Tomorrow’s kitchens will also take advantage of 5G, helping make a smart home more secure while consuming significantly less electricity. Seen as a disadvantage, most of the smart homes in India use different connections like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and others. But companies making chips for smart appliances like our crockpots and refrigerators want more secure (given the fear that the connected home is hackable) and cohesive connections. However, in India, 5G adoption is slow, so we may have to wait and see.
Read also | Does 5G have the potential to become a cohesive technology layer in a connected home?
But there is optimism. “The Indian kitchen has evolved a lot to keep up with the times. “Integrated kitchens give a more compact feel in India, especially among NRIs who are investing in property,” says Anto Thomas, commercial manager, home interior designer company D Life.
Gadgetry, Abundant
You may also have a GPS to guide you around your kitchen. Sakshi Jain and Rakesh Edvalath founded Zelish, a kitchen assistant app in Bengaluru, to offer support for everything from searching for recipes to sourcing ingredients, tracking groceries, and automating shopping lists. The app also takes into account the nutritional needs and preferences of the user.
The app was recently acquired by Canada-based Tiny Chef, an AI-integrated voice-first platform that merges technology with daily kitchen needs such as planning, shopping and cooking. Launched in India in 2019 with Chef Sanjeev Kapoor, it now has over 120,000 monthly users in India, according to its spokesperson.
“Often, people find it difficult not to cook, but to plan around it,” says Sakshi, who is now the Global Chief Marketing Officer of Tiny Chef. “Almost everyone who has taken over the kitchen at some point will have to deal with the problem of ordering more groceries disappearing into black holes. At least 6.4 million worth of groceries go to waste in India,” She adds.
When tech entrepreneur Baahubali Shete and his wife Asha Shete launched Tiny Chef in Canada in 2017, the idea was to revolutionize the kitchen experience by making recipes accessible across Alexa devices and Google Home. By connecting the app to the smart speaker, there is no need to look at the phone while cooking. The user can ask for assistance at each step of a dish. If it runs out of content, Alexa can be asked to add it to the shopping cart. He says the response from the Indian market has been very encouraging.
One of its features includes an option where one can record the voice of a family member. A treasured family recipe is thus digitally documented and added to the user’s personal collection, which can be further shared with other users. It will be recommended by Alexa to users who have been granted access to that recipe.
One can also prepare restaurant-style grilled foods at home with the Smart Tandoor, which unlike the bulky traditional tandoor, is compact, lightweight and fits into the plan of a smart kitchen. Wellberg’s Smart Tandoor comes with an auto-timer and auto-temperature control options, while Wonderchef’s ‘Gas Oven Tandoor’ works as an oven along with the tandoor and can cook anything from cakes to kebabs .
Kitchen robots, smart appliances like Thermomix, which does everything from blending to cooking, chopping and kneading, have garnered more buyers since their launch in India in 2017. In the initial days, inquiries were from professional chefs and hotels, now there are more inquiries from homes across the country, says Yogesh Mathur, Marketing Manager, Pocket Kitchens LLP, Bengaluru, Thermomix dealers in India.
old with new
Sabita Radhakrishna, a Chennai-based cookbook author, social activist and food researcher, says it’s not only the youth who are making their kitchen smart. “For the elderly living alone, technology has been a game changer. I am a traditionalist when it comes to cooking. i still have 100 years old Kadaiso And kalchatti The ones that are fully functional have been handed over to me by my mother. But I also embrace technology. I have now moved my office to the dining table, so my soundless electric cooker makes things a lot easier for me,” she says.
While there are smart devices available in India, prices start at Rs 5,000. Some like to make their existing home appliances smart. “If it’s a simple task, like boiling an egg, saving 12 minutes is less of a chore,” says Anees Ahmed, who uses a smart egg boiler in his home in Hyderabad. Working as a software project manager, he loves automation and is constantly working to make his devices smart.
Smart plugs, which can be bought online for less than ₹1,000, allow users to automate any wired home appliance with an on/off switch. The ‘smart’ device can then be controlled by your mobile phone or by voice commands, says Anees.
With artificial intelligence here to stay, even in our kitchens, we wonder where the smart movement is going next.
.