By
December 10, 2020
It’s the silly season which for many means more time in the kitchen trying out new recipes and cooking much larger dishes than usual as you entertain friends and whānau.
To help, there are a few smart devices you can purchase to make cooking more efficient, safer and perhaps most importantly… taste better!
You don’t have to tear down walls or take out a second mortgage to build a smart kitchen. Your smart kitchen dream can be as simple or elaborate as you want. Here are some of our favourite smart kitchen devices.
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Smart meat thermometer
A quintessential part of a kiwi summer is a backyard barbeque. To impress your guests with the perfect medium-rare steak, a smart meat thermometer is a must. Simply insert the thermometer into the meat and monitor its temperature in real-time from your phone. They’re good value too, with most available for under $30, including the Weber iGrill ambient probe. They’re also a great gift idea for your mate that always seems to overcook your sirloin!
8 in 1 smart pot
The Instant Pot Smart WiFi acts as a pressure cooker, slow cooker, rice/porridge cooker, yoghurt maker, cake maker, sauté/searer, steamer and warmer. Woah! Simply pair your mobile device to the Instant Pot app to control your multicooker, check progress and get notifications about your meal. This way you can finish hanging your Christmas decorations or just sit back and relax after a long year while dinner cooks itself.
Drop Scale
On the surface, the Drop Scale just looks like a basic kitchen scale, but it’s much more than that. With drop scale you can choose from hundreds of recipes that are tailored to the ingredients you have in the kitchen and the appliances you like to use. If you’re short on sugar, simply place what you have left on the scale and use the resizing feature to adapt all the other ingredient amounts too. It also helps you work out ingredient substitutions - perfect if you have guests with allergies you need to cater for.
Smart fridge
If you want to really splash out, the Samsung Family Hub refrigerator will be sure to impress your guests. The fridge has a similar feature to the drop scale in the sense that it can suggest meals based on what’s available in your fridge. It also comes with a feature that lets you create a weekly shopping list. As well as its meal prep features – it keeps you entertained. The fridge doubles as a TV and music player. And if that’s not enough, you can synchronise it to your phone to do things like share your busy silly season calendar with your family or house mates.
Cleaning up the crumbs
When everyone’s bellies are full at the end of Christmas day, the last thing you want to do is clean up all the mess. Not to worry. There’s a gadget for that too. Smart vacuums like, iRobot’s Roomba robot vacuum, will clean up the Christmas cake crumbs for you. The vacuum has smart navigation built into it so it knows where to go to get the job done. Some are operated through voice control or simply through the touch of a button.
Our mates Siri, Alexa and Google
If you’re keen to make things happen (with a little help from a friend!) you can fully integrate your smart kitchen with voice activation systems like an Alexa-powered smart speaker, Google Home speaker or Apple Home pod. These devices allow you to control your smart gadgets, set timers, check recipes and play music by simply saying, “hey Siri, hi Alexa or OK google.”
Finally – make sure your internet connection is fit for purpose. You don’t want your internet to dropout midway through cooking the Christmas Turkey, so be sure to hook your house up to a fast and reliable fibre connection. Check if fibre’s available at your place through our broadband checker.