The smart kitchen is a great idea — and a strange reality

The idea of a smart kitchen conjures up lots of images. You might think about a fridge with a giant screen telling you what’s inside and what you can cook with it. You might picture a robot in an apron milling around the kitchen, flipping pancakes with expert precision. You might just say, “Who cares?” and order DoorDash.

All of these things and more seem like they ought to be possible. But even as so many companies and industries work to make their devices smarter and more interoperable to make the smart home truly happen, it can sometimes feel like the kitchen is being left behind. Sure, your appliances might be getting smarter: you can start your dishwasher from the other room or see the inside of your oven on your smartphone screen. But is any of that getting us closer to what we really want our kitchens to do for us? And hang on a second: what do we really want our kitchens to do for us?

Over the next two weeks on The Vergecast, that’s the question we’ll be exploring. Along with The Verge’s Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, we’ll dig into the smart kitchen of our dreams, the less-than-dreamy reality of the situation, and what it might take to make our cooking, cleaning, meal prepping, and eating more efficient and more fun.

For our first episode, Jen takes us on a tour of her own smart(ish) kitchen and explains why the kitchen often feels left behind in the overall smart home race. Then we chat with two guests, both of whom are trying to build tools that can make your kitchen a lot smarter: Ben Harris, the CEO of Fresco, and Nick Holzherr, the co-founder of Samsung Food. They tell us about the opportunities and challenges in reinventing the way we cook and eat and explain why the AI revolution might usher in huge change.

For more on the smart kitchen, read some of Jen’s recent coverage:

• This smart oven solved my work-from-home lunchtime conundrum
• 2023 in the smart home: Matter’s broken promises
• How the smart home is finally getting out of your phone and into your home
• Appliance makers are teaming up to reduce your electricity usage — and save you cash
• This smart mixer did not make me a better baker
• Can Samsung Food usher in a new era for the smart kitchen?

And stay tuned for next week, when Jen reveals the results of her smart kitchen self-experiment. Got a smart kitchen tip for us? Call The Vergecast hotline (1-866-VERGE11), send us an email at vergecast@theverge.com, or leave us a comment down below!