For years, connected refrigerators have been one of the defining illustrations of the Internet of Things (IoT). Alongside visions of smart ovens, connected toasters, and intelligent coffee machines, they helped paint a picture of homes where every appliance would be online and working together seamlessly. While that vision is yet to be fully realised, connected kitchen equipment has quietly become one of the largest segments of the smart home market.
As discussed in our recently published report, ‘Smart Home: 1.8 billion connected devices in 2035, driven by pervasive connectivity and consumer demand for convenience’ our ‘Kitchen Equipment’ application accounts for 27% of smart home devices in 2035, growing to 37% in 2035; that equates to 181 million devices in 2025 and 670 million in 2035.
However, these headline figures mask a highly diverse market. Connected refrigerators, coffee makers, air fryers, microwaves, kettles, and dozens of other types of devices, offer different value propositions, varying levels of consumer adoption, and integrate with smart home ecosystems to very different degrees.
In this blog, we explore four key trends shaping the connected kitchen market, including why some connected appliances have become mainstream while others remain niche, the impact of fragmented ecosystems and interoperability, and what the next decade of connectivity means for kitchen equipment.
The connected kitchen is often misunderstood. Early visions of IoT suggested that connected appliances would automate cooking and fundamentally change how people prepared food. In practice, the greatest value of connectivity has been much simpler: convenience.
Rather than fundamentally changing how food is prepared, connectivity enhances existing appliances by enabling remote access, notifications, and greater precision. Smart coffee machines illustrate this trend particularly well. Products such as Bosch's connected coffee machines and the Atomi Smart Coffee Maker allow users to schedule brewing, prepare personalised drinks remotely, and integrate with voice assistants including Alexa and Google Assistant. Similarly, smart pressure cookers, such as the Chef IQ Smart Cooker, automatically adjust cooking temperatures, provide guided recipes, and allow users to monitor cooking progress through companion applications.
Connected microwaves and air fryers follow a similar model. Wi-Fi connectivity enables users to start cooking remotely, select programmes through mobile applications, and receive notifications when cooking has completed. Some appliances also integrate food recognition, QR-code scanning, or recipe recommendations to simplify meal preparation. In addition to cooking, connectivity is increasingly being applied to food preparation and serving. Connected grill thermometers continuously monitor internal food temperature and provide alerts when meals are ready, while products such as the Ember Mug automatically maintain beverages at a precise user-defined temperature. Across all these categories, connectivity primarily improves user experience through remote control, monitoring, and automation, rather than introducing entirely new cooking capabilities.
The success of these products suggests that consumers are not necessarily looking for fully autonomous kitchens. Instead, they value connected features that save time, simplify everyday tasks and fit seamlessly into existing routines.
The biggest challenge facing connected kitchen equipment is not connectivity, but interoperability. Most manufacturers provide their own dedicated application to control their portfolio of appliances. This works well for consumers who remain within a single brand ecosystem, but relatively few manufacturers offer every category of kitchen appliance. As households acquire products from different vendors, they often end up managing several separate applications, each with its own interface, user account, and automation rules.
While support for Alexa and Google Assistant provides a degree of common control, integration is typically limited to basic voice commands. Devices rarely exchange information directly or participate in more sophisticated smart home routines in the way that connected lighting, security, or media systems increasingly do. As a result, today's connected kitchen is better described as a collection of connected appliances than a truly integrated ecosystem.
Another characteristic of this market is that not all connected appliances are used in the same way. Some products are inherently application-centric. Connected grill thermometers, smart grilling hubs, and Wi-Fi-enabled ice makers rely heavily on mobile applications to display live data, send notifications, and enable remote monitoring. Their value proposition depends on continuous interaction through smartphones.
Other appliances are more interface-first. A microwave, a kettle, or a pressure cooker can be operated perfectly using its onboard controls. After all, a kettle still needs to be filled with water, a dishwasher still needs to be loaded, and a microwave still requires someone to place food inside. In these cases, a companion app is not intended to replace the physical interface but to complement it, adding convenience through features such as remote monitoring, notifications, personalised settings, and guided recipes.
This distinction may also explain why companion apps play very different roles across appliance categories. For products such as connected dishwashers or ovens, the app complements the appliance by providing notifications and enabling remote monitoring and additional settings, while the physical controls remain the primary interface. By contrast, products such as smart meat thermometers rely almost entirely on the companion app, which provides real-time temperature monitoring, cooking guidance, and alerts throughout the cooking process.
More broadly, a 2023 research study from Science Direct analysing over 1.3 million IoT companion app reviews, suggests that usability, connectivity, and pairing issues remain common frustrations, reinforcing the importance of ensuring that connectivity delivers genuine value rather than unnecessary complexity.
The fragmented nature of the market also limits opportunities for recurring service revenues. Unlike enterprise IoT deployments, most connected kitchen appliances generate relatively little ongoing data that requires cloud processing. Many devices simply transmit operational status or cooking temperatures and functions that can often be delivered without requiring paid subscriptions. Consumers may also be reluctant to pay recurring fees for multiple kitchen appliances that are used only occasionally. Subscription fatigue becomes a real consideration if every connected appliance attempts to monetise software separately.
While recurring revenue models are beginning to emerge, they are typically tied to services rather than to connectivity itself. Consumers are unlikely to pay subscription fees, simply because an appliance is connected. Instead, recurring revenues are more likely to come from value-added offerings such as premium recipe libraries, personalised cooking programmes, automatic consumable replenishment, extended warranties, and predictive maintenance. The success of these models will depend on whether they deliver tangible and ongoing value, rather than charging for features that consumers already expect to be included with the appliance.
Looking ahead, manufacturers may face increasing pressure to develop service-based business models as hardware margins come under strain. While concepts such as "refrigeration-as-a-service" remain speculative, appliance makers could increasingly bundle software services, maintenance plans, or consumable subscriptions with connected products. At the same time, this shift raises important questions around long-term software support. As connected appliances become more dependent on cloud services, manufacturers will need to maintain those services for many years or risk reducing functionality or shortening product lifespans, an issue that has already emerged in other connected device markets.
Connected kitchen equipment is expected to remain one of the fastest-growing areas of the Smart Home Application Group over the next decade, driven largely by the continued replacement of conventional appliances with connected alternatives. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth will remain the dominant connectivity technologies, reflecting the indoor nature of these devices and their reliance on home broadband networks. However, shipment growth alone does not guarantee a mature ecosystem.
The connected kitchen today consists of numerous intelligent appliances that largely operate independently. Until manufacturers improve interoperability and simplify cross-platform experiences, consumers are likely to continue viewing these products as convenient standalone devices, rather than integral components of a fully connected home. For the industry, the next phase of market development will depend less on adding connectivity and more on making connected appliances work together in ways that deliver meaningful everyday value.
