You know the feeling. That niggling suspicion in the back of your mind that you did not, in fact, remember to turn your stove off this morning. That creeping fear that in your haste to get out the door, you left the gas going. Fear no longer, friends. There’s a new device that will turn your stove (and yourself) into a smart appliance. Meet the Wallflower, a simple plug that promises to transform your existing electric stove into a connected device that will offer you peace of mind when it comes to your kitchen.
The Wallflower system is comprised of three key components — a mobile app, a cloud service, and a hardware device. The app will alert you if someone who shouldn’t have done so managed to turn on your stove (like your child), if someone forgot to turn the stove off, if the stove has been on for longer than usual, or if someone left the house with the stove still burning.
This information is collected by the hardware component of the system. Effectively a smart plug, the Wallflower plug goes between your stove’s power outlet and its power code. Once you have this installed, simply download the Wallflower app and get to monitoring. Wallflower’s smart algorithms gradually learn your behavior to determine how long it normally takes you to finish cooking, and will then alert you if your stove has been on for longer than usual. The system also uses GPS geo-fencing to send you app notifications if you have left home with the stove still on. And anytime you leave the fires burning for longer than you ought to, Wallflower will sound an alarm both at home and on your smartphone so you can take action as quickly as possible.
Like many other smart home devices, you can allow multiple family members to monitor Wallflower, or monitor multiple Wallflowers yourself (because do you really trust your kids in their first apartment?).
The Wallflower team notes that cooking is the leading cause of house fires in the U.S., with such a fire occurring once every six seconds. But this smart system could help you avoid being part of this statistic. The Wallflower is now available for order for $170.
