6 ms·

Tovala (YC W16), a smart oven that aims to perfectly cook meals in 30 minutes

33 points by confiscate 11y ago

grogenaut 11y ago
Summary: it's a $400 solder reflow oven for food. Eg it's a computer controlled toaster oven with a heat profile that comes from a bar code on top of the food you buy from the service. Stouffers aluminum tray meals + computer control. Wondering how they're going to solve the food quality / price / stability issue.
- wilcoxbr 11y ago
  Solder reflow recipes are a good idea! Although, in good conscience, I would not suggest using the oven for food after that. Meals are delivered, fresh and uncooked, a la ingredient delivery services. In our case, they're already prepared and just need scanned and put in the oven. Modified atmosphere packaging helps with shelf life and stability. (disclosure: I'm the CTO of Tovala)
yitchelle 11y ago
This looks like we are heading towards the ink jet printers scenario. The oven refuses to cook the food if it detects that the user is trying to use non-approved ingredients. The ingredients will have an edible RFID tag embedded in it for security and ID. /sarcasm
- pdq 11y ago
  That's real. See Keurig 2.0 and its DRM technology. The good news is the market has avoided it, and the regular K-cups (non-DRM) have won.
- illumin8 11y ago
  If you read about the oven you'll see that they allow you to put your own ingredients in it. They'll even sell you pans you can use, and show you how to program the various functions of the oven to make your own recipes.
andyjsong 11y ago
Had a number of their dishes as a beta tester. They have nice quality ingredients. The Chicken Pozole was my favorite. They mentioned that commercial kitchens use this type of tech. I wonder how many restaurants in SF cook their food this way? Maybe this is the next sous vide or at that price point, it could be your next microwave replacement.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- moreorless 11y ago
  Apple Bees would be my guess.
petra 11y ago
In order for their business model to work, it means they have some control over the oven, and it's not fully open. So does it mean that the app expose only a part of the capabilities of the oven, or less accuracies, while people who buy premade meals, get to have the full benefit ?
- wilcoxbr 11y ago
  You have complete control over your oven through the app. You can control each and every cooking element individually. We do have some logic in there to make sure you don't accidentally pull too much power. Other than that, it's all yours. We want you to cook your own meals with it. It's great for that. The delivery service is for folks who do not want to spend time shopping, preparing, cooking, and cleaning. The smarts basically enable us to put a chef in your kitchen, without actually putting a chef in your kitchen.
  - petra 11y ago
    Thanks. So say i have a food business, why won't i offer meals to your customers ? and why would your customers prefer you over me ? Or are your prepared for that to happen ?
  - Eridrus 11y ago
    Do these ovens rely on some cloud infrastructure? Will they still work without it? Also, do you have some pricing information available for the delivery service? I dig the idea, and the fact that you're part of YC gives me hope that this is something you'll actually execute on, but I'd like to know what prices I'm looking at before committing $250+ to it.
pjc50 11y ago
As with all products of this kind: what problem does it solve that isn't adequately addressed by existing technology? Is it really that much better than a microwave? (It's entertaining to find archive advertising material from the 70s/80s when microwaves were still brand new and the manufacturer could make all sorts of claims about what you could cook in them.)
eddyg 11y ago
I still like the idea of the June "intelligent" Oven. https://juneoven.com https://juneoven.com
- shalmanese 11y ago
  Except it costs an order of magnitude more.
jbob2000 11y ago
I'm skeptical they can maintain quality and healthiness at scale. I mean, there's a reason why companies like Aramark and Sodexho have such crappy food; it's just really hard to manage supply at that kind of scale. Aside from that, if their food is frozen or dehydrated, you pretty much destroy the healthy parts of the food. At that point, might as well just stick with the microwavable TV dinners.

33 points by confiscate 11y ago

Summary: it's a $400 solder reflow oven for food. Eg it's a computer controlled toaster oven with a heat profile that comes from a bar code on top of the food you buy from the service. Stouffers aluminum tray meals + computer control. Wondering how they're going to solve the food quality / price / stability issue.

wilcoxbr 11y ago
Solder reflow recipes are a good idea! Although, in good conscience, I would not suggest using the oven for food after that. Meals are delivered, fresh and uncooked, a la ingredient delivery services. In our case, they're already prepared and just need scanned and put in the oven. Modified atmosphere packaging helps with shelf life and stability. (disclosure: I'm the CTO of Tovala)

yitchelle 11y ago

This looks like we are heading towards the ink jet printers scenario. The oven refuses to cook the food if it detects that the user is trying to use non-approved ingredients. The ingredients will have an edible RFID tag embedded in it for security and ID. /sarcasm

pdq 11y ago
That's real. See Keurig 2.0 and its DRM technology. The good news is the market has avoided it, and the regular K-cups (non-DRM) have won.
illumin8 11y ago
If you read about the oven you'll see that they allow you to put your own ingredients in it. They'll even sell you pans you can use, and show you how to program the various functions of the oven to make your own recipes.

andyjsong 11y ago

Had a number of their dishes as a beta tester. They have nice quality ingredients. The Chicken Pozole was my favorite. They mentioned that commercial kitchens use this type of tech. I wonder how many restaurants in SF cook their food this way? Maybe this is the next sous vide or at that price point, it could be your next microwave replacement.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
moreorless 11y ago
Apple Bees would be my guess.

petra 11y ago

In order for their business model to work, it means they have some control over the oven, and it's not fully open. So does it mean that the app expose only a part of the capabilities of the oven, or less accuracies, while people who buy premade meals, get to have the full benefit ?

wilcoxbr 11y ago
You have complete control over your oven through the app. You can control each and every cooking element individually. We do have some logic in there to make sure you don't accidentally pull too much power. Other than that, it's all yours. We want you to cook your own meals with it. It's great for that. The delivery service is for folks who do not want to spend time shopping, preparing, cooking, and cleaning. The smarts basically enable us to put a chef in your kitchen, without actually putting a chef in your kitchen.
- petra 11y ago
  Thanks. So say i have a food business, why won't i offer meals to your customers ? and why would your customers prefer you over me ? Or are your prepared for that to happen ?
- Eridrus 11y ago
  Do these ovens rely on some cloud infrastructure? Will they still work without it? Also, do you have some pricing information available for the delivery service? I dig the idea, and the fact that you're part of YC gives me hope that this is something you'll actually execute on, but I'd like to know what prices I'm looking at before committing $250+ to it.

pjc50 11y ago

As with all products of this kind: what problem does it solve that isn't adequately addressed by existing technology? Is it really that much better than a microwave? (It's entertaining to find archive advertising material from the 70s/80s when microwaves were still brand new and the manufacturer could make all sorts of claims about what you could cook in them.)

eddyg 11y ago

I still like the idea of the June "intelligent" Oven. https://juneoven.com https://juneoven.com

shalmanese 11y ago
Except it costs an order of magnitude more.

jbob2000 11y ago

I'm skeptical they can maintain quality and healthiness at scale. I mean, there's a reason why companies like Aramark and Sodexho have such crappy food; it's just really hard to manage supply at that kind of scale. Aside from that, if their food is frozen or dehydrated, you pretty much destroy the healthy parts of the food. At that point, might as well just stick with the microwavable TV dinners.