Consumer-centric Design Innovates the Future of Smart Tech

Smart technology streamlines everyday living by removing inconveniences and by educating users to be more perceptive. The future of smart tech equals smart consumers, and the demand for devices that have the capability and know-how to make life easier is ever-increasing. 

The Beginning

Similar to “necessity is the mother of invention”, a torched wire from a meat thermometer and overcooked steaks were the catalyst for the invention of MEATER. While grilling steaks with my business partner, we noticed the limitations in the meat thermometer we were using. When the device didn’t signal that dinner was ready, and we later discovered that an essential wire from the device was torched along with our food, we were at first pretty disappointed that there wouldn’t be steak to eat, but that quickly turned into bright-eyed excitement and wheels spinning in motion for a technology solution that would guarantee we’d never have burnt steaks again. This is the future of smart tech.

To create a smart wireless meat thermometer that would meet our desired outcome while also being innovative and one-of-a-kind, we researched all the available products on the market, paid attention to common customer complaints for those products, and addressed the pain points of each one by putting ourselves in the customers’ shoes to create a device we would actually use in our own everyday cooking routines. We didn’t want to just put another meat thermometer out on the market. We wanted to create an intelligent device that would garner a cult following, and that’s just what we did.

On-going evaluation of consumer needs and uses help us pinpoint the most essential solutions that our technology can provide. We keep an open line of communication and an open mind to help us innovate and tailor to the consumer, remaining attentive to feedback, and providing a solid support system so we know precisely what features we need to develop and which pain points we need to tackle. Our customers and followers are actively engaged with us on social media. They’re not shy about telling us exactly what they think of our products, and that’s exactly what we want. We value their impact and we apply it to our research and development. They are at the core center of how we innovate our technology. Truly the future of smart tech.

Building Smart Tech

So many daily tasks are now carried out through smart phone applications but there’s more to connected products than just having an app. When we decided to build a product in the IoT consumer space, we wanted to delve further than just having a convenience app, and instead build products that will disrupt the market and change habits and behavior.  

We believe that our technology needs to go beyond making life more convenient. We design our tech to include education that guides the consumer to understand why things work the way they do. For grilling steaks, MEATER made it easy to cook the prefect steak, helping the user to rely on internal temperature, rather than the look and feel of the meat, to determine when their steak was ready.

I think we’ve all tried that trick of poking a steak and seeing if it feels like that part of your hand between your thumb and forefinger to determine if it feels done. That’s hardly effective. But, being able to gauge when your steak will be ready by monitoring the internal temperature of the meat and the ambient temperature of the grill will get you precise results every time.  Building the skill set starts with educating the user through the purpose and function of your technology. Then, reinforce the learning by creating an easy, user-friendly and fun way of establishing repetition and yielding consistent, desired results. The future of smart tech begins here.

We have pushed the boundaries with MEATER, but we still have creative ideas to improve it. Sleekness of design, charging speed, expansion of Bluetooth range, new App features— these are all things that will always remain in development as the technology continues to progress forward.

We will continue to be a strong presence in this space and when we feel we have maximized MEATER, we’ll design new smart, innovative products that enhance and inform the consumer lifestyle.  The foreseeable future of smart technology is our primary focus when it comes to the kinds of products we’ll innovate.

Future of Smart Tech

We expect to see an evolution and future of smart tech products that take advantage of smart appliance features allowing true guided cooking for consumers. Imagine not knowing how to boil water yet having a kitchen full of smart gadgets that can have you making gourmet-quality meals in a fraction of the time it used to take, all while quietly teaching you to become a home chef. This isn’t coming in our distant future; it will be here before you know it.