Bean Stove: A smart cooktop that lets you chill while your food cooks

The Bean Stove combines the user-experience of the rice-cooker with the flexibility of stove-top cooking. You choose a recipe on the app to set the cook cycle, and it takes care of adjusting the heat and turning off at just the right time. It sends you notifications when you need to stir or add ingredients, so you can focus on other things while your food cooks.

The heating element has an embedded temperature sensor, and it uses strain gauges to measure the weight of the ingredients.
http://beanstove.com/img/bean_render.jpg

It plugs into a regular wall outlet, and you can use the same cookware you use on a stove.
http://beanstove.com/img/bean_pot.jpg

Click here for more info

Our team will be going through the District 3 startup program over the next few weeks, and we would love to hear your feedback on the product!

Best,
Sam Khan
Co-founder of Bean

8 Likes

Cool, pretty. I’ll back your Kickstarter. I’m a big beliver in connecting everything!

1 Like

Neat. Will it be induction? - I think that would be safer.

How much will it cost?

id definitely go for induction.

i think the main question you must ask is “why”

why does a customer want a connected hotplate? is this for people who are into sous vide? is this like MELD which is focused on this functionality for gas tops (and use BLE). is this for beer brewers? temp is super important to them, but you will need a thermo probe. maybe a thermistor like on SmartBBQ in these forums?

is this a safety precaution? eg. notify me if my hotplate runs for more than 1hr. or if i leave the house,

The key is finding product market fit. you have a cool product concept, but you must identify your market to have a successful KS campaign

1 Like

We’re planning to sell it for $60.

We do want to do an induction version, but the one we’re Kickstarting in September will probably be electric. The reason (thanks @avidan for bringing this up) is that we think a key market for the Bean Stove is going to be kids that go off to college (parents will probably be the buyers).

Bean makes cooking interactive. When making a stir-fry, for example, different ingredients require different cooking times. You start by putting in the oil, garlic and onions. Then you add things like peppers and peas. Things like mushrooms and leafy greens only require a very short cook time.
When you follow a recipe on the Bean app, it sends you a notification so you can add things add just the right time.
Another example is cooking rice. The Bean Stove can bring your rice to a boil and then turn it down to a simmer for you, and turn off 15 minutes later (or however long is required for the rice you’re using). Like a rice cooker except you can use your own cookware and can modify the cook-cycle to your preference.

Thanks for the feedback, keep it coming!

1 Like

Cool! Looking forward to seeing the pre-orders open up!

cool. be smart about the wireless interference from an electric coil. also PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE invest in a quality kickstarter video!!!

2 Likes

At a minimum of 3 X cost, that puts the cost at $20 each. Wow… How?

The $60 will be the promotional price for the early-birds (which I hope you’re planning to be ;)). List price will be closer to $150.

Why did I pay extra for a wifi connection (totally does not work) for a recent BBQ smoker purchase?

Why would I want to start a pot of boiling water for pasta 15 minutes before I get home? Why would I like to know when the liquid is almost boiled off of a pot of whatever, before it starts to burn? Why would I want to monitor the progress of a meal while watching the sunset rather than the pot? Why would I want to be able to program a temperature profile into my cooking surface so I don’t have to watch a clock, and then walk to the stove and turn it down/up, just at the right time or screw up my meal?

And that is just what I can imagine using it for and I’m not anything special in the cook department. :smile:

The BBQ smoker control/monitor setup was a failure because they used a wifi device as router scheme. Im not sure what that topology is called exactly but the wifi in the BBQ acts like a router and you have to select as the single wifi you are connected to in order for the App to work.

OK -> BUT, the iPhone switches to the strongest signal among available routers, so the BBQ App is offline as soon as I step away from the BBQ. Also, if I want to monitor the BBQ, I can’t have WiFi. How the heck can I enjoy BBQ if I can post it on FB, text off some photos and monitor my email?!!! The implementation is thoroughly failed. They should have used a Core or Photon and let the App talk to the BBQ through the cloud.

HEY! That’s what the Bean does. Nice work Bean Team…

While you are building out the idea I would suggest you add a headphone jack for a cheap RTD or TC temp sensor in a stainless steel probe with a clip for the side of the pot. Might want to manage heater based on the temp the food. You could sell that probe as an accessory which keeps your advertised price lower. Everyone would buy it. Think about adding a number of access points to the Photon through headphone jacks. Even if you don’t have any clue how to use them when you launch, your customers will educate you and you’ll be able to do a simple software flash, app update, and upsell a new accessory.

Good luck!

As to having an answer to “why” before launching a product in a new technology that you believe in, I think that in the now, few if any startups have that answer in anything like the form that is taught in business cases or written about in books. Anything written about is history. On Monday morning, it is easy to reconstruct a case for “why” out of what has proven to work. Likewise, in the now, it’s easy to challenge a proposal with “why” and demand the same level of explanation that is offered in the historical rewrites that the victors (or their chronologers) offer.

Why did Intel launch? To make memory. Why did they launch the uP? To deal with a flaky customer. Why is Intel a household name? Because they got out of the memory business and instead poured all their effort into creating and supporting better versions of a product that had nothing to do with the “why” of their founding, then finding value unimagined in the “why” of the original uP design concept.

When I got involved with personal computers in 79, there was no “why”. We just wanted to make them, and we loved the concept so much that we believed other people would love them too. Later, when a group of us developed PC measurement instruments the “why” was very limited in scope After the products launched the customers showed us “WHY” in blazing letters and those of us who listened to them prospered.

Having lived through four technology waves that created trillions is value I’ve learned that the “why” is never known at the outset. What is known is that something wonderful is about to happen. If you feel it, and immerse yourself in it, you might become the crest of that wave, or at least get pushed up into the high rent district with the rest of the driftwood. What matters is that you believe in the wave, and you jump in.

I think IoT is one of those waves. I think Particle could easily be another Microsoft, or Apple, or Intel, if Particle become the core on which all this automated/sensing/connectivity is built. Was that the “why” the first prototype was built? Not from my reading of the genesis of this company. Of course, Intel could decide to jump in early, with Particle like devices, and more support, and more sales outlets, and a massive customer base and reputation and Particle would disappear. Intel should jump in, but will they. IBM let Microsoft happen, and they should not have. “Why”? Perhaps because they were telling themselves that without a strong “why” there was no opportunity.

So Bean Team, and all the other dreamers (like me) out here imagining a world where IoT is ubiquitous, don’t worry too much about why. Its a tidal wave. Jump in and surf the crest, get pushed way up on shore, or just get drowned. I don’t believe you can predict where your dream will land you. All I know for certain is that if you don’t jump in until you have a strong “why”, the wave will have already gone by.

:wink:

1 Like

Beautifully put.

And a really good point you make about having a clip for a probe. In fact, we want to add a BLE module so that we can support all sorts of accessories like this!

Good luck riding the wave to you and all the other dreamers out there :wink:

If the accessory is on the cook surface, I’d stick with a wire. If you use Bluetooth in the cooktop and the accessory, you’ve got more expense and also battery issues to complicate. If you really wanted to build an accessory that was a distance from the cook surface, just build a Photon into that accessory and let a Mobile App handle the inter-module communication. I’ve sometimes had terrible performance out of bluetooth when not in sightline.

Actually I think a good use for this would be to heat tea.

You can buy kettles where it heats your water to the right temperature for different types of tea.
Typically you cant put the tea in them.

With this cooktop you could put your tea in and water in a tea kettle, it could heat up the water to just the right temperature for that type of tea and then wait the right amount of time for that type of tea and then send you a message to pour. Its difficult to do all that right for a good cup of tea and technology helps here.

Yup that’s a fantastic use case.
Also, if you drink your tea in the morning, you could put the kettle on the Bean Stove before you go to sleep and have it turn on 5 minutes before your alarm rings! :sunny:
I’m not a tea drinker, but I intend to do this for the water for my oatmeal.