The "Living Tomorrow" Kitchen

[annecros]

Ran across this press release today:

Living Tomorrow Launches in the US

The kitchen of tomorrow features an electronic note board that tracks the

    amount of food in the refrigerator and pantry. Sensors on the food items

    can be scanned on the note board to find a cooking instruction video that

    matches the meal you are about to prepare. The note board also monitors

    water and power usage in the house and notifies you when normal amounts

    are exceeded, indicating, for example, that a faucet might have been left

    on.

I like the energy and water consumption monitor, and it would be nice to have an electronic inventory of the pantry and fridge (but wouldn't I have to scan the product in?) but I am left a little cold by the instructional video.

[DCP]

Clearly there is some interface and user-friendliness work to be done before the concept is truly accessible to everyone.

Personally, a networked kitchen (and home) is one of my dreams that's been slow in coming. Many vendors are trying, but there are a lot of proprietary solutions out there. For example, Salton's Beyond Connected Home is a series of wireless network-enabled products (kitchen computer, coffee machine, microwave, bread machine) that communicate and interoperate - but not cheaply. Then there's the LG Internet Fridge which stands alone - basically, a Windows CE computer integrated into the fridge with some handy software for monitoring.

What I'm really lusting after is the Intelliscanner Kitchen Companion, which is a hardware/software solution for managing your food supplies (you need to scan the product - exactly your objection). Sadly, I doubt any of this will really take off unless it starts being more automatic - perhaps with heavy use of RFID tags in packaging.

[annecros]

What I'm really lusting after is the Intelliscanner Kitchen Companion, which is a hardware/software solution for managing your food supplies (you need to scan the product - exactly your objection).  Sadly, I doubt any of this will really take off unless it starts being more automatic - perhaps with heavy use of RFID tags in packaging.

←

That's pretty cool, and $200 including the deluxe bundle is not too bad. I wonder if the database is ammendable and/or updatable? 300,000 products sounds like a lot, but there must be a million unique UPC's out there.

Somebody needs to tie into the debit account, so when you slide your card at the grocery store it updates your pantry. The grocery stores already store scan data for inventory control and product management purposes.

[dividend]

Somebody needs to tie into the debit account, so when you slide your card at the grocery store it updates your pantry. The grocery stores already store scan data for inventory control and product management purposes.

←

I would SO buy that. That would also solve the problem of buying un-scannable items like, um, fresh produce, or anything from the bulk bins. The software could also create an automatic pricebook, making it effortless to track the price cycles of items you buy often, and integrate with a palm pilot meal planning /grocery list program. As if I'm not ALREADY the geekiest person in the grocery store.

Of course, that takes the fun out of my do-yourself Access database pet project.

[Rebecca263]

I wonder, how will they connect my ibrik?

[docsconz]

While it would be helpful to keep track of what goes into the pantry and additional automation as has been suggested on this thread would be an improvement, that is only half the equation. Subtracting what is used may be the more difficult half to get a handle on as it is less subject to true automation.