Amazon recently announced that its voice assistant service Alexa is all set to become your new cooking partner. And this will be of use especially when you want to heat something in the microwave or oven. The user could simply instruct Alexa to do a certain task like preheating the oven and expected it to be done.
Well, while Alexa can maintain cooking timers on the Echo devices, we are speaking about smart appliances here with Alexa's AI built right into it.
In this process your oven will have to support the same technology — in short, be a smart appliance. While this hands-off approach is a really smart move for making life easier, not many kitchen appliances currently support the feature.
Amazon has announced Alexa to now have a cooking capability, which is part of a Smart Home Skill API. Using this API, developers can now create programs and insert recipes that can help Alexa communicate with smart ovens and help you cook.
Amazon, on their blog post this week, said, "Now you can build skills to enable customers in the US to control their microwave ovens using Alexa. Support for other cooking devices, such as conventional ovens, is coming soon. Cooking capabilities will also be available in other countries soon."
Whirlpool has developed an Alexa-skill-learning oven which uses the Smart Home Skill API for its connected microwave ovens, which will be launched soon. The skill enables customers to easily configure, start, and operate their connected Whirlpool microwaves. Customers can ask Alexa to set microwave cook times, modes, power levels, and more instead of using the traditional and often confusing microwave experience.
Alexa-capable ovens could soon see their way into the market in the near future. GE Appliances, Kenmore, LG, and Samsung are presently working on using the cooking capabilities in the Smart Home Skill API to let customers control their ovens and more appliances using Alexa in the future.
Additionally, Amazon also announced that the Alexa Fund, their venture capital arm, has invested in June Life, makers of the June Oven, a countertop smart oven that makes cooking easier, faster, and tastier. Amazon is excited about the innovations June is bringing to the smart kitchen, including their existing Alexa skill, and look forward to what they will create when the support for ovens in the Smart Home Skill API is introduced.
