The Rise Of Smart Coffee Home Appliances – CoffeeTalk

Smart kitchen appliances, such as ovens that allow users to set timers and alert them when food is cooked, or washing machines that know what you’ve loaded into the drum, are not just a gimmick but a way to put users in control. Daniel Hadley, UK Managing Director at Smeg, believes that the smart kitchen is about making it personal for the user and not just adding Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for the sake of it.

Smeg’s own smart kitchen app, SmegConnect, was launched in 2018 alongside one of the company’s more niche appliances: a wine cooler. The app’s first iteration allowed home wine connoisseurs to manage their collection, plan food and wine pairings, manage temperature throughout the cooler, and operate the lights. Since then, SmegConnect has expanded to cover other large appliances, including ovens, washers, and dryers. For example, if you have a smart oven, you can use the app to start preheating remotely on the way home from work, share recipes via social media, and choose recipes to follow with times, temperatures, and cooking modes already set. If you have a Wi-Fi-enabled washer or dryer, you can select and start a program while you’re out so it’s finished the moment you get home.

Hadley wasn’t able to say whether SmegConnect will become available for Smeg’s smaller appliances, such as countertop ovens and toasters, but he could see a case for it with coffee machines like the Smeg BCC13 (which earned a place in our roundup of the best coffee makers) or the Smeg Mini Pro Espresso Machine, which was also demoed at the event.

Coffee is very subjective, and an app that connects to a fully or semi-automatic coffee maker can let you make your drinks exactly the way you like them, consistently, rather than sticking to presets set up by a team elsewhere. Smeg’s rivals Bosch and Siemens have taken a similar approach, both having ranges of smart coffee machines with the HomeConnect app. The app lets you make a personal menu of your favorite drinks (known as a Coffee Playlist), which you can then send to your coffee machine. HomeConnect can also use a system called BeanIdent to tweak your machine’s settings to suit the type of coffee you’ve poured into the hopper.

Hadley and Rebdi couldn’t say exactly what’s coming, but they definitely have plans in mind for your kitchen. Smeg might not be charging ahead like Samsung, which recently unveiled AI-enhanced fridges that can order more eggs if you’re running low and let you answer your video doorbell.

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