Who Took The Cookies From The Cookie Jar? Why Not Ask the Built-in Camera

Last Updated on: 29th January 2017, 10:24 am

Normally when I hear about one of these internet connected household gadgets, my first thought is who the hell is this for? But that’s not the case with SKE Labs’ smart jar. Once I get my hands on one, it’s going to be easier than I ever imagined possible to tell something to kiss my ass while I stuff my face with Oreos, which is an awesome use of the future any way you look at it.

SKE (Smart Kitchen Ecosystem) Labs is on a mission to make your kitchen work for you rather than the other way around. Its first product is Neo, a sensor-equipped smart jar that keeps track of what’s inside it, which is communicated to a connected device via Bluetooth. This might sound trivial, but having a ‘conscious’ jar in the kitchen can go a long way to making your life easier — and healthier. As Neo can track the weight of its contents, measuring scoops of flour or sugar for a recipe, for example, is as easy as looking at the app. And Neo can tell you if you’ve eaten one too many cookies by showing you the nutritional contents of the food you’ve removed from the jar right down to the calories, carbohydrates, fat, and protein.
The smart jar can also assist in meal prep. When the food in the jar gets low, Neo will send an alert to add its contents to your grocery list. The app will suggest recipes based on what’s inside, and it will track ‘best before’ dates to avoid using spoiled food in a dish. On top of being smart, Neo also hits some necessities on the container side of things as well. The smart jar is dishwasher safe, has an airtight lid, and looks pretty good as jars go.

Alright, ya got me. Who the hell is this for?

1. If you need a computer to tell you to take it easy on the Chips Ahoy, you’re either a child, an imbecile or were raised by wolves in a jungle somewhere far away from an education system. And what if I’m being nice and grabbing a couple cookies for myself and a couple for someone else? The stupid jar is going to be giving me the “Hey fatass!” warning unfairly and probably judging me from the cloud for the rest of time, the dick.
2. Best before dates are garbage a lot more times than you’d think. There are plenty of things that, assuming they’re stored correctly, last weeks or months longer than the date on the packaging would have you believe. If you’re the type to blindly follow what a shiny display tells you without a smell, look, touch or heaven forbid a tiny taste test, you’re going to wind up throwing a lot of things away unnecessarily, costing yourself quite a bit of money in the process. Then again if you’re the sort of person who would intentionally purchase a jar with internet access, perhaps that’s not much of a concern for you.
3. There’s a much cheaper way to figure out if something needs to be added to your grocery list. If you know what you’re making, make sure you have everything you need before you start. If you don’t, put it on the list and go get it.
4. It runs on bluetooth and says it charges wirelessly, but it has to get its power from somewhere. Something still has to be plugged in. Who has enough outlets to plug in bases for all this crap? And I’m not sure if you’ve been paying attention, but hydro bills are already high enough without having to plug in all your fucking canisters.
5. I know they claim it’s dishwasher safe, but a lot of things claim to be dishwasher safe, specifically things that warp and melt after repeated exposure to intense heat. Plus I’ve got this hang-up about putting anything with electronics in it near water because it’s just not a good idea.
6. Maybe I heard this wrong, but I believe that video said that it knows about everything in your home. Do they seriously expect me to sit there and punch in every morsel of food I own? If yes, I expect them to go to hell and take their stupid jar with them.
7. If your internet goes down, are you going to forget how to cook? Since you’ve paid good money for a jar that can tell you how to scoop and gives you recipes, signs point to yes. See you at your funeral once you starve to death, assuming there are enough family members left to get the GPS working.

There’s so much technical talent and brilliance in the world. It’s a shame to see so much of it wasted on shit like this. If these folks could channel all of that energy into solving problems that are actually problems instead of building toasters that can surf Pornhub, we’d have one amazing planet.