Drop adds voice technology to its smart kitchen platform

Leading Irish smart kitchen technology firm Drop announced today its inaugural foray into voice integration technology with Apple’s voice-controlled virtual personal assistant, Siri, part of Apple Inc.’s iOS, watchOS, macOS, and tvOS operating systems.

The symbiotic relationship between Drop and Apple has evolved over the past five years: Drop’s first connected product, Drop Scale, the Bluetooth-enabled kitchen scale, was sold in all Apple Stores across the United States and Canada when launched in 2014. In addition, the Drop Recipes app at the core of the Drop platform was first launched on iPad. This ongoing collaboration now includes the introduction of voice activation capability of Siri within the Drop Recipes app, utilising Bosch Coffee Machines with Home Connect.

Speaking about today’s announcement, Drop’s co-founder Ben Harris said: “We are very excited to announce this integration with Apple’s voice command, Siri. The majority of Siri-enabled devices travel around with us, and they greatly outnumber those supported by other voice technologies. This represents another first for us.”

Within three years, counting Drop’s current partners alone, over 17 million appliances from the world’s leading brands will be “Powered by Drop.” Siri will ultimately interact with all of them, allowing users to control their appliances whilst keeping their hands free for cooking. The kitchen is the place in our homes that can reap the biggest benefits of voice technology.

Recently appointed Mark Wheatley, Head of Product at Drop, elaborated further: “Integrating Drop’s technology with Siri creates a beautifully simple and genuinely helpful user experience, totally in keeping with Drop’s mission to help people make food more. We chose Siri for our voice control because it excels in the two most important aspects: ubiquity and privacy. In sharing Apple’s dedication to security, Siri ensures greater privacy for our end users as all processing of Siri shortcuts happens directly on the device and not in the cloud.”

With a mutually innate understanding and appreciation for design and connected appliance technology in the preparation of food, Bosch and Drop have been partners since 2016 when all Bosch Ovens with Home Connect became compatible with the Drop platform.

From 11th March, all Bosch Coffee Machines with Home Connect will enable users to call out the coffee of their choosing without having to touch a single button.