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Watch LG's CES press event in 9 minutes
This morning, LG used its CES press conference to reveal more details about its "Real 8K" televisions and rollable 4K OLED TV. LG also offered a glimpse of its 48-inch 4K OLED and its GX Gallery Series ultrathin wallpaper OLED TVs. Additionally, the company confirmed that the 2020 lineup will support Dolby Vision IQ and Filmmaker Mode, and US viewers will be able to get additional details about specific scenes.
June promises to fix smart ovens that are preheating accidentally
As convenient as smart ovens can be, they also introduce their own hassles -- namely, technical hiccups. June plans to update the software for its signature oven after multiple reports of the devices accidentally preheating overnight. CEO Matt Van Horn attributed them to user errors, such as forgetting to remove food, tapping a button by accident or inadvertently issuing an Alexa command. The company isn't taking chances, mind you, and has both immediate and long-term fixes in the works.
This portable, solar-powered oven was built for the apocalypse
One of the things I love most about CES is the array of fascinating gadgets I come across. I'm talking stuff that's not a smartphone or a laptop. Case in point: this portable, solar-powered oven. GoSun's Fusion electric stove has an integrated heating system that can heat up to 550 degrees Farenheit, making it capable of cooking a meal within 20 minutes, with only sunshine as fuel. The company says the Fusion is five times more efficient than a traditional oven, and claims it can cook food with the same amount of energy needed to power a lightbulb.
Whirlpool will let you control appliances with your Wear OS watch
At CES last year, Whirlpool announced Alexa and Google Assistant support for its smart appliances, and noted it was working on an Apple Watch app. This time around, the company has revealed plans for more ways to control its smart home products with Wear OS support, which will arrive later this year.
Brava's light-powered smart oven is too expensive to make sense
Smart cooking gadgets aren't new, but the rise of computerized countertop ovens is relatively recent. The June was one of the first to arrive on the market, three years ago, and the Tovala, a steam-powered model with a meal-kit-subscription service, debuted last year. Now there's yet another one, and it's called the Brava. It retails for a whopping $995, and one of its main selling points is that it cooks with light. Yes, it's basically an Easy-Bake Oven, but for adults.
Tovala's latest smart oven looks and feels a little more familiar
Last year, Tovala introduced its first smart steam oven, which was specially designed to go with the company's own meal-delivery service. Think Blue Apron but without the hassle of actually knowing how to cook. Just do minimal prep work, pop the ready-to-cook meal in the oven, scan the associated barcode and you'll get "homemade food" in less than 30 minutes. Today, the company is ready to reveal the second-generation Tovala, which was designed to look and feel a little more like a regular oven. It's priced at $349.
LG appliances now respond to both Alexa and Google Assistant
LG has officially joined the ranks of appliance makers that support more than one voice assistant. The electronics giant has announced that its current collection of ThinQ-branded appliances now takes commands from both Amazon's Alexa and Google Assistant. The amount of control you'll have will vary, of course, but there are common elements: you can make ice in your fridge door, turn off the oven or cool down with your air conditioner.
LG's Alexa-powered fridge sends recipes to your oven
Now that LG's Alexa-equipped refrigerator is no longer a novelty, the company is moving on to the next step: appliances that work in harmony. This week at CES, it's introducing a range of smart appliances that thrive on sharing information to help you get things done. The centerpiece is LG's next Alexa-capable fridge, the InstaView ThinQ. While its 29-inch transparent touchscreen, webOS platform and voice control aren't all that new, its integration with your oven is. When you choose a recipe (including those suggested by the fridge, which detects what you have on hand), you can send it to an oven with Alexa support to get spoken cooking instructions. This is ultimately a luxury -- your fridge likely isn't that far from your oven -- but it's good to have your recipes right where you'll use them.
Amazon Alexa now controls your microwave
Alexa's smart home skills aren't just for turning on the lights or locking your door these days -- now, they can help fulfill your culinary ambitions. Amazon has added cooking abilities to its Smart Home Skill framework, letting you control microwaves (and eventually conventional ovens) with your voice. Instead of pressing umpteen buttons, you can simply ask Alexa to "defrost 3lbs of chicken." Suffice it to say this could be helpful if you don't want to start cooking right away, or if you just hate your microwave's interface.
Luxury AGA ovens aren't safe from hackers
In the kitchen, nothing screams "I have money" like an AGA. The expensive British-made cast-iron stoves (or cookers, depending on where you're from) have barely changed in terms of looks much over the last century, but they have got smarter. Thanks to the company's iTotal Control technology, owners of certain models -- costing $10,000 and upwards -- have been able to switch their oven on and off via an app or by sending it a simple text message. It's no doubt helped them remotely prepare dinner, but a security flaw in the system has also left them open to mischievous third parties.
June is smarter than a regular oven, but $1,495 is hard to swallow
Smart cooking gadgets are de rigueur these days. We've seen connected sous vide machines, smart kitchen scales and even a WiFi slow cooker. So you'd be forgiven if you thought a smart oven would be just another appliance with an app. The June smart oven, however, is a lot more than that. It's outfitted with an HD camera, a 5-inch touchscreen, a slew of sensors and even a 2.3 GHz quad-core NVIDIA CPU, all for the purpose of taking the guesswork out of cooking. And after three years of development, the company is finally starting to ship to preorder customers next month. The downside: It costs $1,495. And while I think it's a wonderful machine, that's still much too rich for my blood.
Samsung's built-in smart appliances blend in with your decor
Smart home appliances are all well and good, but they're rarely options if you need or prefer that machinery built-in. What if your oven has to blend in neatly with the kitchen? Samsung wants to help. It's introducing its first-ever built-in smart appliances, all of which tout WiFi-connected features while integrating with your home. They're expensive, but just might fit the bill if conventional equipment simply won't do.
Bosch and Drop team up on smarter kitchen tech
Many appliance makers are forming partnerships to drag their lineups into the smart home era, but Bosch's alliance may be something special. It's teaming up with Drop (of smart scale fame) to add intelligence to kitchen devices. The two are starting modestly: if you have a Series 8 oven with Home Connect support, you can already use Drop to control the appliance as well as monitor the temperature and time. However, the companies have grander things in store.
Whirlpool is putting Innit's smart recipes on its WiFi ovens (updated)
Getting recipes and other cooking tips directly on a connected appliance is increasingly becoming the norm, and Whirlpool is one of the next in line. The company announced that it's Jenn-Air line of WiFi-equipped ovens will soon feature Innit recipes. While Innit aims to tackle the entire kitchen, including food storage and more, personalized recipes work with the connected oven and your tablet or phone. The appliance adjusts cooking to the weight and type of food to help ensure the results are what they should be.
Panasonic makes the first countertop induction oven
Induction cooking is great for budding chefs: it rarely needs preheating, it's energy-efficient and it's safer than conventional burners. Getting it has usually meant going for a full-size oven or a cooktop, however, which isn't always practical if you're in an apartment or otherwise can't justify tearing out your existing appliances. That's where Panasonic thinks it can help. It just introduced the first-ever countertop induction oven, giving you all the benefits of the technology in a relatively tiny, enclosed space. If you want to grill a barbecue-grade steak, you can do it with a device that's roughly the size of your microwave.
A $1,495 toaster oven takes the guesswork out of cooking
It may look like the toaster oven that you fed yourself with that time you were on the lam and hiding in a seedy motel, but this could be the future of cooking. Meet June, a tabletop oven that combines cutting-edge heating elements, clever sensors and smartphone technology to build "the computer... that cooks." Technology-wise, there's an NVIDIA Tegra K1 chip with a 2.3GHz quad-core processor paired with a 5-inch touchscreen and a "full HD" camera that's been embedded in the ceiling. You guessed it: the camera is for posting pictures of your culinary concoctions to Instagram.
GE's smart appliances let you take control with your phone
It's now fairly easy to get at least a few connected appliances, but it's still rare to see a full range of them. What if you want to outfit your whole home with smart equipment? GE thinks it has an answer with its new Profile line. The series' dishwasher, fridge, laundry combo, ovens and water heater all give you control from a smartphone. You can preheat your oven before you get home, or tell your water heater that you're going on vacation. Your washer will let you know when your clothes are done, and your fridge will warn you if someone left the door open. Only the ovens are available today, though, so don't start planning a home technology revamp just yet. While the water heater arrives in February, you'll have to wait until the spring to get either the fridge or the laundry pair -- and the dishwasher won't arrive until 2015 is almost over.
Dacor's Android-based ovens take voice commands from an app
We don't often write about ovens here, but when we do, we tend to come back to a brand called Dacor. Here at CES 2015, the 50-year-old company announced that it's adding voice activation to the phone and tablet app for its Discovery iQ Android-powered ovens plus ranges -- and we're looking at a base price of $8,999. While the existing app already comes with a remote control feature (including temperature, cooking mode and oven lights) plus recipe browsing, the new voice control saves you the hassle of tapping buttons, so long as your phone or tablet is on the same WiFi network as your oven.
Dacor's Android oven packs 1GHz processor, 7-inch screen, heat (hands-on)
Dacor's ninth-generation oven pulls together a 1GHz processor, 512MB of DDR2 RAM and Android 4.0.3. It also cooks food. At the front of the Discovery Wall Oven, there's a 7-inch LCD touch panel, while the UI behind its oven-centric widgets is apparently the product of a design collaboration between Dacor and BMW's DesigworksUSA -- they're all simple enough to navigate and get things done. The oven-maker's Discovery IQ controller cooking app will offer up interactive cooking guides, recipes and all other things cooking, although you'll still be able to install more standard apps from Google Play. The built-in cooking app offers preprogrammed dishes and adjustable timings for several dishes, while you can even program the oven to cook food remotely from any Android device. You'll also get notifications (text message or on-screen) through your other Android device when your meal is done. An iOS version of the app will be ready to launch alongside the oven sometime this summer, with the double unit priced at a wallet-trembling $7,499 and the single oven at $4,499 -- so there's the price for convenience. It'll arrive in three different finishes, but sounds like it should go well with our other digital white goods and digital cutlery. We've got our hands-on video uploading at the moment, but take a look at our gallery for a closer look.
The Joy of remote-controlled Cooking: LG's Lightwave oven makes mealtime mobile-operated
Advances in oven technology are more the province of Jack Donaghy's former GE overlords, but over in South Korea, LG's taking a real-world stab at making the fictional CEO proud. An update to its Lightwave line, this new, next-gen kitchen appliance employs halogen heaters to cut down on traditional cooking time, a range of menu pre-sets to accommodate your meal-making and, most worrisome of all, a wireless connection for smartphone control. With that last tidbit of information, you should be either horrified by the opportunities for absent-minded, accidental pants pocket activation or pleased and at ease with the convenience it affords (which means you likely have children and can now tend to that bottle of red undisturbed from the couch). So, what exactly can you do from the comfort of your own phone? For starters, you can set the timer while you're away, adjust the temperature and even activate the steam cleaning feature. It's not clear if all of this remote action's restricted to the company's own devices, but if you're living in the company's home territory and have a fancy for haute-tech cuisining, this one's for you.