Vera Dordick has a passion for all things home decor and design. She loves bringing the latest in home lifestyle products and design trends to Homedit readers.
Vera dove head-first into the design and decor field in 2015 after a lifetime of DIY-ing and creative pursuits. She scouts the major design fairs for fresh ideas to make your home stylish and comfortable.
Amid all the gorgeous kitchen designs at EuroCucina in Milan, many of the most exciting innovations were actually things you can’t readily see — technologies that make life, cooking and cleaning easier. From fully connected kitchens to smaller technological advances in appliances, tech was the name of the game.
Smart Kitchens
Fully connected, smart kitchens make it possible to not only control and schedule the operation of your appliances, but sessionally provide a dashboard of your household life. Siemens presented a personalized system that is run from an app. On a busy morning, you can see your schedule, the time, weather and other parts of your day. The same app controls your coffee maker, dishwasher, washer and dryer, oven and refrigerator. Speaking of the refrigerator, the latest ones take picture of the contents so that you can check if you have milk or other groceries while you’re away from home — even while you’re at the store.
Whirlpool also demonstrated their fully connected kitchen, which can include a visual baby monitor as well as personalized cooktop settings sensitive enough to keep your coffee warm, or to warm up your baby’s bottle.
Siemens has also teamed up with Bosch to offer their dishwasher in the smart kitchen.
Induction Cooktops and Gas Range Innovations
While induction cooktops aren’t necessarily new, many of the latest features are revolutionary and will likely add to their appeal. When you think about it, the cooktop can take up a good amount of counter space, reducing the area you have for prep work and serving. The latest induction models solve that problem by using countertop surfaces that can work with high heat to create an induction cooktop that you can barely see when it’s not in use.
Smart Appliances
Even if you don’t have a fully connected kitchen or home, you can incorporate select appliances that are controllable with an app.
Unique appliances
Technology and the desire for professional level cooking at home has led to the development of a wide variety of specialty appliances. One of the most interesting lines we saw come from Irinox, which has created restaurant equipment for decades. Now, the home chef can have Freddy, a blast chiller that offers all sorts of opportunities in the kitchen. You can chill a hot dish down to frozen, flash freeze fruit so that it has the texture of a sorbet (we tasted and it was amazing), or bring ice cream to the proper serving temperature and hold it there as long as you need. Imagine being able to slice a frozen loaf of bread, thanks to the small crystals that are formed in the method of freezing. You can also cook and hold items in Freddy.