Embedded technology in the kitchen
In partnership with Tramontina, Ayga uses IoT technology and develops Guru, the smart cooktop
Luiz Francisco Gerbase, CEO, and João Ricardo Wagner de Moraes, CTO, exhibit the Guru cooktop
Convinced that the Internet of Things (IoT) will increasingly assist people in their daily routines in different parts of the world, Luiz Francisco Gerbase, an engineer specialized in embedded microelectronics and innovation entrepreneur, founded Ayga. For the past four years, he has been dedicating his knowledge to building IoT projects that generate social impact, such as the first intelligent cooktop in Brazil developed by Ayga in partnership with Tramontina.
The executive's expertise and future vision led him to increase Tramontina's desire to incorporate cutting-edge technology into its products. The intelligent cooktop, which initially had features for measuring the weight and temperature of food, gained more functionalities, becoming highly connected to a recipe database and an interface application. But the applied innovation goes beyond that point, as Guru was designed to teach people who are not familiar with the kitchen how to cook. It's the intelligence of household devices taken to a new level, ensuring more efficiency and effectiveness in any activity, from the simplest to the grandest.
"When the project was conceived four years ago, the intention of launching a cooktop capable of teaching people how to cook was quite bold. Today, device connectivity is an increasingly present reality," says Ayga CEO Gerbase. For him, new IoT communication networks such as Sigfox, LoRaWan, and cellular networks such as 5G are making a series of low-cost long-distance monitoring applications feasible.
Development and testing process
From concept to launch, the Guru cooktop took about four years to be developed, tested, and only then made available to the market. João Ricardo Wagner de Moraes, partner and CTO (Chief Technology Officer) of Ayga, says that the first step was to consolidate the method of measuring the temperature of the food through indirect measurement. The procedure worked, and from there the cooktop began to be designed, with all its functionalities. "Today, having the application and functions (scale, temperature sensor, power control) seems obvious, but at the time it was very conceptual," Moraes recalls.
Without benchmarking in the market, the project design was done through design sprints and a lot of multidisciplinary interaction with different teams at Tramontina. "We raised ideas, opened up possibilities, and presented functional prototypes to gradually mature all the concepts," he says.
Throughout the project, several prototypes were used before the intelligent cooktop that is being launched on the market existed. "With each test, people achieved better results, and that motivated us throughout the whole process," Moraes adds.
The experimentation led to continuous improvements. In the first test, it was observed that it would be more appropriate to manipulate the system from the cooktop itself than from the app on the cell phone, especially during the recipe preparation process.
With the concept designed, the project began to be developed, including the database that would become a differential of the Guru cooktop. Moraes argues that the result was surprising because it allowed someone without cooking skills to execute a complex recipe. "Teaching people to enter this world using technology is simply incredible," he concludes.
The Ayga CTO also points out that there are different ways to use the product. For those who dispense with guidance or do not feel the need to follow a recipe, it is possible to enjoy the advantage of remotely controlling the stove and obtaining important data, such as precise weight and temperature measurements.
The Guru cooktop is an induction cooktop with intelligent features enabled by IoT technology. Like other smart products, connectivity is its central feature and, thanks to it, it is able to collect, store and process a series of information, delivering practicality to users. The device's connectivity is done through Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.
About Ayga
The project for the cooktop Guru marked the beginning of Ayga's activities, a company based in the Technological Park of the University of Vale dos Sinos (Tecnosinos), which was already founded on the extensive experience of its CEO, Luiz Francisco Gerbase. The executive has developed more than 500 world-class hardware and software products throughout his career, currently exported, and which are part of the technological collection of Altus Sistemas de Automação, a company he co-founded in the early 1980s.
Gerbase is also a co-founder of Teikon and HT Micron, which launched SMT technology and microelectronics packaging assembly technologies, fundamental technological vectors for the country's development. In addition, he is the technical manager at the Regional Council of Engineering and Architecture of Rio Grande do Sul (CREA-RS) for the automation equipment and project of more than 22 Petrobras oil platforms, eight of them operating in pre-salt fields.
Alongside his partner and Ayga CTO, João Ricardo Wagner de Moraes - a control and automation engineer with over 15 years of experience in embedded product R&D, including the industrial automation sector with roles as a project coordinator and team manager in hardware and software projects, as well as international experience - Gerbase affirms that the cooktop Guru project is a showcase of the potential and quality of the services developed by Ayga.
According to him, Ayga, as an IoT solution provider, develops intelligent control systems that can be manipulated remotely, such as managing the temperature of thermolabile medications (like vaccines) or cold chain management, for example. "Our company's big dream is to be among the world leaders in the Internet of Things (IoT)," reveals Gerbase. "We are confident that with the knowledge and experience we have in the global market, we can design and manufacture these systems in a very competitive way," adds Moraes. The duo anticipates that "there are many high-impact products coming soon."