Great connected tech for your smart home kitchen — Part 2
11 July 2021
Debbie and I hope everyone had a safe and happy July 4th weekend. We took advantage of the long weekend to pull together the final tweaks to our floor plan to deliver to the architect as well as continue our work on the exterior elevation. I think we’re close to finishing that up as well.
We’ve been thinking more about smart kitchen since my last post about kitchen appliances a few weeks ago. There are a lot of smart home options in the kitchen outside of appliances, like the development around smart faucets and vent hoods. I’ll address those today.
There’s been a lot of development around “non-traditional” smart elements in the kitchen so planning power and connectivity are key for successful installation. As with appliances, some of the new smart kitchen devices have ethernet ports. Debbie and I are taking a “future flexible” approach when it comes to network drops so we will place cabling where we see opportunities all around the kitchen. The outer kitchen walls behind the appliances are common places but other locations exist. Specifically, in Debbie’s kitchen, the island and the coffee bar.
Connected coffee machines already exist so this is an easy call. We’ve given the island a lot of thought as it’s generally a mixed use of network needs. During our visits to family and friends, kitchen, and in our own homes, the island tends to be a gathering point for everything from food preparation to dining to office space. This makes planning around cabling the island a little trickier as it requires conduit in the foundation, easy enough for new builds but much more involved for existing builds. We’ll provide multiple drops to the island to support a smart faucet and countertop — a port inside the cabinetry for the smart faucet and cabling to support counter top pop ups for crock pots when entertaining, power (AC or USB) and ethernet for laptops or tablets when the grandkids do homework or simply charging our phones.
Electrical is another key element in the island to support all of the above. Smart faucets come with AC power options versus batteries which will be the better option long term as I really don’t enjoy changing batteries on anything and even dislike crawling under cabinets more. Besides the island, there will be USB power outlets around the kitchen as well as key locations throughout the house.
The KOHLER Setra smart faucet has voice-activated technology that dispenses measured amounts of water at your spoken command. You can turn the water on, fill containers to a preset level or dispense a specific quantity. When dispensing measured amounts however, a minimum of 8 oz. is required and accuracy may vary depending on water pressure and flow rate. In addition to voice control, this touchless faucet has a motion sensor that turns water on and off with a wave of your hand. The faucet works with the KOHLER Konnect app so you can monitor water usage via innovative flow sensors and displays that information on the app. An interesting side benefit is it will notify you of unusual flow, greater than 0.5 gallons per minute for 3 seconds but it’s not to be relied upon for water leak detection.
KOHLER Konnect pairs with Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant or Apple Siri. Siri can be used across all of your Apple devices but is limited to on/off control. It connects via 2.4 GHz wifi and requires password-protection to connect. It’s also AC-powered but requires a non-switched under-counter outlet.
The U by Moen Smart Faucet offers convenience, precision and intuitive voice-activation technology to help complete tasks in the kitchen. I like that it has customizable settings so you can program personalized commands to allow you to save time throughout your day by making repetitive activities simpler. Like the KOHLER Setra, it allows you to control your faucet in a variety ways — use your voice, hand motion or the Moen Network app and control water without ever touching your faucets handle. Voice control allows users to start and stop water flow as well as perform specific tasks on command through your digital voice assistant. Ask Moen to dispense water at desired temperature and volume through your Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. The Wave sensor, positioned at the front of the faucet, turns water on or off with a simple hand movement. You can also set unlimited personalized presets or start and stop water delivery with the smart app.
The Trinsic VoiceIQ Kitchen Faucet with Touch2O Technology uses Delta VoiceIQ Technology to pair with your Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant. Like the other options above it gives you exactly the amount of water you need with features like metered dispensing and custom container commands — simply ask your faucet to dispense just about any other amount you could need. Custom container commands also make everyday tasks easier, like filling a coffee pot or dog bowl, while features like water warm-up and voice-activated on and off are helpful when your hands are full. A simple touch anywhere on the spout or handle with your wrist or forearm activates the flow of water at the temperature where your handle is set. The Delta TempSense LED indicator light changes color to alert you to the water’s temperature and eliminate any possible surprises. There is also an interesting hand wash feature that provides the proper timing for lathering, scrubbing and rinsing your hands. Pretty timely in my opinion from a pandemic perspective. And it could be helpful in getting the grandkids to wash hands properly. It’s also AC-powered and requires a non-switched under-counter outlet but also can operate with 6 AA or 6 C batteries if getting power to your sink is not possible or cost prohibitive.
None of these smart faucet options are easy on the budget as the top end exceeds $900. Compared to the benefits this may be a tough sell with Debbie but I’ll plan on the power and network infrastructure regardless in anticipation that someday we’ll have a smart faucet in the kitchen. This is something we also need to consider for our bathrooms and coffee bar as well.
Switching gears now to another part of the kitchen. Xiaomi has introduced a new, intelligent stove hood called Xiaomi Mijia Smart Side Hood. It stands out not only as a new category entry into smart kitchen but has modern and timeless design. It has quality metal materials but the front panel is made of special black glass, which makes it easier to clean. Its inclined body construction optimally absorbs smoke and does not obstruct your view when cooking. Thanks to its powerful motor, it can filter up to 20 cubic meters of air per minute and can be equipped with up to a triple smoke filtration system. The filter separates grease parts and oil droplets.
Like other elements of the Xiaomi ecosystem, the hood is equipped with Bluetooth, so you can control it through the Mi Home and We Home apps where you can set the on or off time of the hood or to manage the power of the fan motor. The price of this new hood is surprisingly $139 USD which actually concerns me. Unlike the faucets, I’d probably feel better if it was more expensive. Again, this is a Debbie call as the kitchen is her space.
I’d probably close here but some interesting smart technology news has surfaced recently. For all you Master Grillers and Smart Home Fans, this may be the best of both worlds as it brings the smart kitchen to the great outdoors.
Traeger Grills, best known for its wood-pellet grills, announced that it has acquired wireless meat thermometer company MEATER. MEATER makes Bluetooth and WiFi connected thermometers and has an accompanying mobile app to give you continuous monitoring and guided cooking instructions. It’s simple to use as you just stick the MEATER into your protein, select the type of protein that you’re cooking and the thermometer gives you real-time tracking of internal and ambient temperatures. Once the food hits the target internal temperature, the MEATER app sends you an alert to pull your protein out of the heat and tells you how long to let it rest.
Traeger has its WiFIRE connected wood pellet grills and also provides users with similar monitoring and target temperature functionality through their mobile app and Apple Watch integration. But unlike with MEATER, you can control the heat of the grill remotely to make adjustments to your cooking wherever you are in your home.
Traeger acquiring MEATER can also been seen as a response to Weber buying smart oven maker June as the two companies look to modernize around connectivity. The first line of June-integrated Weber grills announced earlier this year featured real-time temperature monitoring and guidance both on a grill display and on a mobile app. It’s not hard to imagine that future versions of Weber/June grills will feature the ability to automatically or remotely control cooking temperatures as well.
Regarding our home build progress, as I mentioned when I opened we’re working to finalize the architectural plans of our home. From a lumber price perspective, there’s been more good news as demand has eased and supply has expanded. Lumber prices dropped by more than 40% in June, the biggest monthly drop since 1978. This comes after prices hit an all-time high in May.
This has Debbie and I as excited as ever to get started. It’s looking very possible that we could still break ground this fall but we still have the bidding process and interviews with builders to go through. If we can get the architectural plans finalized in the next few weeks we’ll move forward with the bidding/interviews regardless of the price of wood to decide on a builder. Then we’ll make the call on our start based on wood prices and builder/subcontractor availability. Stay tuned as we step through this process.
As far the smart kitchen tech covered here, let us know your thoughts. Is a smart faucet a novelty or does it pass muster on ROI? And a smart hood may not be for every kitchen as the design of the one above is pretty modern where many kitchen trends lean toward mid-century, industrial or farm house. We have friends out there who are pretty accomplished barbeque chefs so I’m curious as well if options around smart technology for grilling are attractive or the preference is to stick to the tried and true.
Keep the comments coming via the blog, email and DMs. Debbie and I love the feedback as it gets us thinking about new options and allows us to help others on their smart home journey. Let us know about topics you’d like us to address also. Until next week …
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