[bflesch]

The problem is not the robot loading the diswasher, it is the dishwasher. The dishwasher (and general kitchen electronics) industry has not innovated in a long time.

My prediction is a new player will come in who vertically integrates these currently disjoint industries and product. The tableware used should be compatible with the dishwasher, the packaging of my groceries should be compatible with the cooking system. Like a mini-factory.

But current vendors have no financial incentive to do so, because if you take a step back the whole notion of putting one room of your apartment full with random electronics just to cook a meal once in a blue moon is deeply inefficient. End-to-end food automation is coming to the restaurant business, and I hope it pushes prices of meals so far down that having a dedicated room for a kitchen in the apartment is simply not worth it.

That's the "utopia" version of things.

In reality, we see prices for fast food (the most automated food business) going up while quality is going down. Does it make the established players more vulnerable to disruption? I think so.

[lambdaone]

This exists already in the form of "ready meals" a.k.a. TV dinners. Fast food shops are already substantially mechanised; huge effots have been made to robotize cooking, but people are still cheaper to hire. It's still nowhere near the quality of home-cooked food.

[bflesch]

Yes, there are a lot of garbage microwave food offerings, especially popular with the US population. As a European I'm talking about quality food made with an automated process and end-to-end automation, including ingredient procurement and cleanup.

Not in competition with trash food but with proper food and local ingredients.

[criddell]

> the whole notion of putting one room of your apartment full with random electronics just to cook a meal once in a blue moon is deeply inefficient

You don't use your kitchen? After the rooms we sleep in, the kitchen is probably the most used space in my home. We are planning an upcoming renovation of our home and the kitchen is where we plan on spending the most money.

> The tableware used should be compatible with the dishwasher

Aside from non-dishwasher safe items, what tableware is incompatible with a dishwasher?

[bflesch]

Yes, of course I use it a lot. It is a great hobby. But only use it because it is kind of forced upon us. It's just so inefficient nowadays. Cooking used to be for the whole homestead or for the large family. Now it is mostly only for the immediate family. All the machines are not utilized properly. When people discussed car sharing it was exactly the same argument and I feel it also applies to kitchens.

With the "tableware" argument I meant something like a standardized (magnetic?) adapter for grabbing plates, forks and knives so they can easily be moved by machines/robots.

I feel a company like Ikea is perfectly set up to make this idea a reality, but they'll never do so because they make much more money when every single household buys all these appliances and items for their own kitchen.

Just from the perspective of a single household in a densely populated city I think it'd be nice to have freshly cooked, reproducibly prepared meals with high-quality ingredients available to me. Like an automated soup kitchen with cleanup. Without all the layers of plastic wrapping needed to move produce from large-scale distributors into single-household fridges and so on.

[criddell]

I think what a lot of people missed when they were talking about shared cars a few years ago is that people seem to mostly like their cars. They spend far more on them than they need to. The average price for a new car is almost $50k now when a vehicle costing half that would satisfy most people's needs.

I'm guessing people mostly overspend on kitchens as well. When our renovation happens, I'm sure we will and I'll feel pretty good about it.

For cars and kitchens, utilization considerations seem to be ranked way, way below things like comfort and convenience and beauty.