Electric kettles are a staple in many homes around the world. The convenience of quickly heating water for tea, or maybe even a cup of ramen, really can’t be beat.
But two former students of the Design Academy Eindhoven have found a way to possibly improve this common kitchen appliance.
Nils Chudy and Jasmina Grase were inspired after hearing design consultant Leyla Acaroglu quote some statistics during a 2014 TED Talk. Acaroglu said that a single day of wasted energy from overfilling electric kettles is enough to light all the streetlights in England for a night.
The problem seems to come from heating more water than is needed or actually used. The way traditional electric kettles are designed, overfilling is common and difficult to avoid. So water, energy, and even time are wasted.
MIITO is Chudy and Grase’s solution to this problem. MIITO isn’t exactly an electric kettle, instead it’s a portable induction stove. It has a round, disk like base with a magnetic heating rod.
MIITO is an electric kettle replacement option that works by placing a vessel of your choice, like a mug, on the base and submerging the heating rod into your liquid. So you heat only the amount of liquid that will actually be used.
For more information on MIITO check out the Kickstarter video below.
MIITO can be used to heat more than just a cup of tea. The company claims you can heat just about any liquid from coffee, to baby formula, and even soup. MIITO also allows for different sizes of vessels made from a variety of materials. A bowl, tea pot, glass, or any other non-ferrous vessel can be used.
Because of the various ways MIITO can be used the company sees their product going beyond a simple electric kettle replacement. Chudy told Wired:
“We have dreams for the future. There could be other things—like in the Asian world they cook a lot of rice, so you could have a very small rice cooker. It’s a long term, five- or seven-year dream for a lot of different things that need heating.”
The company is in the final week of a Kickstarter campaign to launch MIITO. They have raised over six times their original goal with more than $617,000 in pledges. You can still preorder your own MIITO for around $100, but you will have to wait awhile to actually use it. MIITO isn’t schedualed to ship until April 2016.
Image: MIITO
Aira Bongco
It can if it is easy to store. We have an electric kettle and I could not imagine a kitchen without it. Sure, it can be useful. But is it expensive? How durable is it?