Get connected: the best smart tech for your kitchen

by Great British Chefs 16 April 2018

Kitchens have become the latest room of the house to get the full tech makeover, with clever apps and appliances interacting with each other for more cohesive cooking. Here are some of the most useful gadgets currently on offer.

Great British Chefs

Great British Chefs is a team of passionate food lovers dedicated to bringing you the latest food stories, news and reviews.

Great British Chefs

Great British Chefs is a team of passionate food lovers dedicated to bringing you the latest food stories, news and reviews.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of those exciting inventions that makes us feel like we’re living in the future. In brief, it refers to a network where physical items can connect to each other (usually via wifi or Bluetooth), exchanging information and influencing a machine’s behaviour. It’s starting to crop up in every aspect of our lives; we can now use our mobile phone to pay for goods without a credit card, turn the lights on or off and even turn our heating up when we’re on the commute home. And it’s in the kitchen that some of the most exciting products are being developed.

Whether you’re after something that makes following recipes a doddle, want real-time data on your eating habits or just want to feel like you’re living in the kitchen of the future, these are some of the best ways to turn your humble room into an all-singing, all-dancing technological paradise.

Salter Cook Bluetooth Scales and Thermometer

One of the most profound effects smart technology can have on our cooking is the way our appliances interact with whatever recipe we’re following. There are dozens of different ways to do this, but one of the best is through the Salter Cook app, which can connect with the Salter Cook Bluetooth Kitchen Scale and Thermometer. These connected kitchen products allow you to create and store a personal cookbook on your smartphone or tablet, leaving you with complete control over your culinary creations. Once you’ve found a recipe online that you want to cook, it can be uploaded and then transformed into an easy-to-digest interactive recipe with customisable weights, times and portions. As you work through the list of ingredients, you can cross things off using the strikethrough feature so you know exactly where you are, and when you’re measuring out or adjusting quantities on the scale you can see what you’re doing on-screen. The app can also automatically set the required temperature on the thermometer and will let you know when the food is ready.

£79.99 (Save £49.99) for the Salter Cook Kitchen Scale and Thermometer (with the free to download Salter Cook app), salterhousewares.co.uk

Vitamix Ascent

There are blenders and then there are blenders – and the Vitamix Ascent definitely fits into the latter category. It boasts the super-charged motor, power and durability that all Vitamix blenders have, but the Ascent can detect what size container you’re using via near-field communications (NFC) technology. It will then adjust and adapt the built-in program settings so they’re best suited to whatever container is attached. That means it knows whether you’re grinding a few spices for a curry or a big batch of soup for the family. It’s also Bluetooth-enabled (although it’s disabled right now), which paves the way for apps to interact with the machine at a later date.

From £549, vitamix.com

Miracle-Gro Aerogarden Harvest Elite Wifi

We’ve all heard that talking to plants helps them grow, but this clever hydroponic herb garden means your plants can let you know when they need more water or nutrients via a wifi-enabled app. There’s no soil in sight – the plants grow above a reservoir which provides the roots with everything they need, and the powerful LED light means you can put your garden anywhere in the house. No need to put it on the windowsill and hope for sunshine.

£139.95, Amazon

iVide Wifi Cooker

If you’re a fan of kitchen tech then sous vide is probably something you’re pretty passionate about – after all, it offers precision and control better than any other method of cooking. However, the wifi-enabled iVide takes things a step further. Once you’ve downloaded the accompanying app to your phone, you can type in what you’re cooking, how much it weighs and (for meat) how well-done you want it, and the machine will know exactly what temperature to heat the water to and for how long. You can also set a timer, so it’s ready exactly when you need it.

£139, sousvidetools.com

Amazon Echo

While it’s touted as an all-round ‘home assistant’, the Amazon Echo really comes into its own when you’re halfway through cooking a dish, your hands are covered in dough or sauce and you need to set a timer or work out a conversion on-the-fly. Being able to shout questions at a robot while you’re in the midst of a potential kitchen disaster can be a lifesaver, and you don’t run the risk of covering expensive electronic equipment with messy fingerprints.

£74.99, Amazon

Hapifork

In a world where everything – for better or worse – seems to becoming ‘smart’, you might think a fork (one of the most basic tools in the kitchen) really doesn’t need to be messed around with. But the Hapifork is actually pretty clever. Through haptic technology it knows how fast you’re eating and will light up and vibrate when it thinks you’re going too quickly, which can help with weight loss. It can also track your eating habits (provided you eat everything with the same fork) and upload it via Bluetooth to a dashboard, so you get real-time updates on your daily intake.

£62, hapi.com