Ember – Smart Mug by Alexander Gornyi

The post was originally published in Russian on Startup of the Day. Alexander kindly agreed to republish what we think is of great value to our readers.

You can pour yourself some hot coffee. The first third of the cup will burn you, the second one will be perfect, and the third one will be too cold. You can pour yourself some warm coffee. Then the first third will be perfect, and over a half of your drink will taste bad anyway.

Or you can use a mug by Ember, the American startup of the day. Its in-built thermometer and heater will support the same temperature as long as necessary. Both first and last drops will be exactly the way the consumer prefers. You want 55 degrees – it will be 55, you want 57 – you can drink it at precisely 57. By the way, I have no idea how many degrees I prefer, I must be less than a true millennial.

The mug costs about 100 dollars. You can buy it at the Ember website, on Amazon, and – most probably – in a bunch of other places. What’s amazing for a present-day gadget, they didn’t come up with a proper subscription for it, once you have bought it, you don’t have to pay for anything. They could have fantasized something in the vein of ‘smart heating’ for a dollar per month. ‘Tricky algorithms will take into account the weather outside your habits, and the lunar phase, and instead of the ordinary 53 degrees they will finetune it by about 0.2 degrees back and forth to activate your taste receptacles in their entirety.’ But – for better or worse – nothing like that. Just one hundred dollars one time.

The startup brought in USD 23.5B of investment in the December round.

https://ember.com/

#usa #roundb #hardware #food

Translation: Kostiantyn Tupikov