In an industry that sometimes seems to come up with solutions to problems nobody had, it’s always interesting to hear when a tech gadget is dreamed up to deal with a specific issue its inventor is having.
For James Hammer, CEO of Loki Products, the occasion is his family’s weekly get-together. The problem? That whoever’s turn it is to do the cooking usually finds themselves spending more time tending to the meal than catching up with the rest of the group.
His answer? The Loki Sphere, a so-called “smart meat thermometer,” which lets chefs use a temperature probe for their cooking, and then receive data via a mobile app, advising them on how the meal is cooking and when it’s likely to be ready.
“Most meat thermometers are very basic,” Hammer told Digital Trends. “They give you information about what’s going on right at that moment, but there’s nothing more than that. Our device can offer you advice on how you should be preparing your food, how long it’s got left, internal and ambient temperatures, and more. It gives you more autonomy over your cooking.”
It’s not just autonomy it’s promising though. Hammer said that Loki also offers suggestions of recipes, which makes it a smart kitchen assistant, as well as just a neat tool. “One feature I’m particularly proud of is the fact that you can look back on past data concerning your cooks,” Hammer continued. “If you do a really good cook of a brisket or a pork shoulder or something like that, you can see what you did to cook it like that — and try and repeat it in future.”
Unlike many meat thermometers that operate on Bluetooth or RF connections, Loki is a WiFi-connected thermometer, which, according to the Kickstarter campaign, means you can “go to work, to the gym, or out with friends, confident that the status of your masterpiece meal is at your fingertips.” Doing so would slightly spoil the purpose of a family gathering, of course, but there’s no denying the useful functionality of its added range.
It’s even possible to connect up to four temperature probes to the Loki smart base to track the progress of four different meats at once.
At present, the device is raising funds on Kickstarter — where it’s got a little over one month left to hit its $50,000 funding goal. A Loki Sphere and probe starts at $89, with an estimated shipping date of January 2017.