June Intelligent Oven • Hacker News Board

Re: June Intelligent Oven

#151

Post by lifekaizen » Wed, Jun 10, 2015, 7:46 PM UTC

lambdaelite wrote: post #63

compumike wrote: post #49

There's a market developing here within the "temperature controlled smart cooking" world, with the number of different engineering approaches growing rapidly. Y Combinator alone has funded three companies in this space already! Pantelligent (YC W13) - $199 - https://www.pantelligent.com/ - smart frying pan plus smartphone app. Recipes are smart software & give you instructions to adjust on the fly to provide perfect…

With the exception of the immersion circulator, I don't understand these devices. Can you help me understand? I'm an experienced cook, so (again, with the exception of the immersion circulator) I'm not in the target market for these devices. I'm having trouble understanding the target market though. I was thinking that it was for inexperienced people who want to cook at home. When I play that scenario through my head…

I see this as two camps. One is helping people cook and get comfortable and have fun with that, and the other is based on the new food science of temperature. This is most commonly known today as sous vide and implemented with an immersion circulator. The food quality really is 10x better, for example you can keep meat proteins below the temperature they seize up and push out moisture, and the experience is something you can't go back to normal cooking from. Because the food doesn't overcook* you have an hour of flexibility, if you love cooking you can use this to try more complex sides and time it right. If you're busy, you can stay calm when your spouse is 30 minutes late. It's like when the DVR came around and you could pause live TV, and no one could go back. Cinder takes advantage of precision temperature cooking to let you do these things, and unlocks other kinds of unattended cooking. You can set onions to a caramelization temperature and walk away, yes you could replicate that yourself if you wanted to hover and stir for 30 minutes, but this is like delegating to a sous chef.

*This is a slight simplification. Food will break down and turn mushy, but nearly everything has an expanded range for being done. Which means ending the tyranny of the clock.

Re: June Intelligent Oven

#152

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 10, 2015, 8:25 PM UTC

lifekaizen wrote: post #151

lambdaelite wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the exception of the immersion circulator, I don't understand these devices. Can you help me understand? I'm an experienced cook, so (again, with the exception of the immersion circulator) I'm not in the target market for these devices. I'm having trouble understanding the target market though. I was thinking that it was for inexperienced people who want to cook at home. When I play that scenario through my head…

I see this as two camps. One is helping people cook and get comfortable and have fun with that, and the other is based on the new food science of temperature. This is most commonly known today as sous vide and implemented with an immersion circulator. The food quality really is 10x better, for example you can keep meat proteins below the temperature they seize up and push out moisture, and the experience is something…

[deleted]

Re: June Intelligent Oven

#153

Post by qq66 » Thu, Jun 11, 2015, 4:55 AM UTC

lambdaelite wrote: post #63

compumike wrote: post #49

There's a market developing here within the "temperature controlled smart cooking" world, with the number of different engineering approaches growing rapidly. Y Combinator alone has funded three companies in this space already! Pantelligent (YC W13) - $199 - https://www.pantelligent.com/ - smart frying pan plus smartphone app. Recipes are smart software & give you instructions to adjust on the fly to provide perfect…

With the exception of the immersion circulator, I don't understand these devices. Can you help me understand? I'm an experienced cook, so (again, with the exception of the immersion circulator) I'm not in the target market for these devices. I'm having trouble understanding the target market though. I was thinking that it was for inexperienced people who want to cook at home. When I play that scenario through my head…

If you let a device cook for you every time, you're not going to learn anything, so the device's value proposition is safe. I've been taking cars to the mechanic for 15 years and haven't learned a thing about cars while doing so, even though I could have been.