We collectively waste a huge amount of energy heating up our drinks every day. In fact there’s a theory that one day of extra energy use from over-filling electric kettles is enough to light all the street lights in England for a night. Scary. But now an enterprising design team has come up with an idea to do away with the conventional kettle completely, and so save massive amounts of this wasted energy.
MIITO is an induction based replacement for the electric kettle. The key thing about it is the fact that it only heats exactly the amount of liquid you need for your drink. And that can include milk, soup and other liquids as well as water, note.
The idea is you put a simple looking rod into the cup or container with the liquid, and the induction base starts up to heat the liquid through the rod. It’s very clever stuff, and of course there’s no waste at all because you only heat the amount you need at that time.
The idea is currently in the running to win a James Dyson design award, and we think it definitely deserves to have a shot at production. It’s cool, smart and eco friendly, and anything which can help us save millions of pounds worth of energy has got to be a worthy product to offer the world.
Ouch I just burnt my hand touching that boiling hot piece of metal in my hand. Ooops.
This is an elegant idea. I like it. Though I have to say it’s easy to put exactly the amount of water I need into my current electric kettle, which I suspect is faster than the Miito. But not so good for soup.
I love this!
Definitely in the category “why haven’t we already got this?”.
I only really need the rod, because I already have an induction hob but must have.
I imagine a simple disc and rod of iron or steel would work. Any machine shop ought to have one spare or be able to make one. Now searching my tool drawers in hopes of finding something the right size.
Heh, yes. In fact it looks a little like a valve stem from a car engine, does it not? :)
heh-heh, great minds and all that. Having an induction cooktop, I also immediately began a mental inventory of metallic objects I’ve squirreled away that would fill the bill. Needs to be flat-bottomed to maximize induction and long-handled enough to not burn fingers.
But if I recall correctly, my cooktop (and I suspect most) will have a minimum diameter requirement before it recognizes the iron object and starts to induct, as a safety feature – this prevents metalic objects like butter knives left about on the surface from becoming rocket-hot when you don’t intend them to.