It’s been two years since we first told you about the sous vide startup Mellow, and in that time, there has been plenty brewing in the smart kitchen world. Indeed, Mellow has its work cut out when it comes to differentiating itself from other sous vide machines, like those from Delta and Anova, but that seems like a challenge the company is ready to take on. Especially now that the Mellow, which is actually a hybrid appliance featuring nifty bonuses like built-in refrigeration and a scale, is finally ready to ship in May.
Creators Zé Pinto Ferreira and Catarina Violante of FNV Labs, the brains behind Mellow, knocked it out of the park in the design department. We’re getting some serious Dieter Rams vibes from this thing. The machine looks like an odd hybrid of a Braun SK 4 and a Brita filter pitcher, but instead of playing music or making your tap water taste better, it prepares perfectly cooked food at the touch of a button.
Additionally, unlike some of the more popular immersion circulators on the market right now, Mellow is not designed to be clipped, clamped, or otherwise affixed to the side of a pot. Instead, it comes with its own built-in water tank, so it just sits on your countertop, coaxing you in with its sleek exterior and inviting you to use it more often.
But Mellow’s beauty isn’t only skin-deep. Under the hood, it has some pretty stellar features, including Wi-Fi connectivity. Mellow can connect to your home network, allowing you to control everything from cook time to temperature using your smartphone, tablet, or computer.
In addition to a precise heating element that allows it to heat the tank and cook your food to perfection, Mellow is also equipped with a cooling unit. That might not sound like a big deal at first, but it’s a complete game changer for sous vide. The addition of refrigeration allows you to place your unprepared food inside Mellow during the day, and leave it there until you want to cook it. Since you can control the device via Wi-Fi, you can drop food in it before you leave for work, and then use the app and arrange to have your meal finish cooking around the time you get home. This helps to solve the time problem of the sous vide cooking process, which often takes two hours or more.
While Ferreira has since left Mellow, the company is still moving full steam ahead, with veteran employee Gary Itenson (previously the company COO and now its new CEO), telling The Spoon, “[Mellow’s] ship date starts in May and by mid-to-late June, customers will be able to purchase a Mellow unit from stock via our website. Pre-order pricing will be ending soon and going forward we expect $499 to be our target retail price.”
Article originally published in April 2014 by Drew Prindle. Updated on 04-05-2017 by Lulu Chang: Added news that Mellow will begin shipping in May.
