HotLogic Looks To Reinvent Cooking In AI Age

HotLogic wants to make cooking stupid-proof.

With its “new” four- and eight-shelf countertop conductive SmartShelf Ovens, all you need do is put your food – either pre-cooked, frozen, or raw – in a recommended sealed container (plastic, or, preferably, glass) on one of the shelves, and close the front glass door.

And that’s it.

Essentially, the oven version of a crock pot, only smarter, the SmartShelf has no controls. None. It recognizes whatever food that is placed within it, then cooks it to, and keeps it at, serving temperature for up to 12 hours – without you having to do anything: no buttons to press, no knobs or dials to turn, no screens to tap. Just put raw ingredients, frozen or refrigerated leftovers, or pre-cooked meals on one of the shelves in the morning, and the food will be ready to eat whenever you’re ready for lunch or dinner. A red light on a shelf means your meal is cooked.

“It’s an entirely new way to cook,” insists Brian Youngblood, HotLogic’s ebullient, cowboy hat-wearing director of partnerships. Like the old Easy Bake Oven, the SmartShelf uses low energy, a maximum of 70 watts, to cook food to a precise serving temperature, 165 degrees. While SmartShelf won’t sear, it also can’t overcook. “It’s cooking with software,” Youngblood quips. “Whether it’s frozen, refrigerated, or whatever, the oven does the rest.”

Not Exactly ‘New’

While we’ve described the SmartShelf Oven as “new,” it’s only new to the consumer market. The Grand Haven, Michigan-based HotLogic has been selling its SmartShelf system and similar food prep and grab-and-go meal vending machines to more than 500 commercial and industrial clients for years. For instance, SmartShelf ovens prepare more than a million meals a year for Walmart team members in break rooms more efficiently than one-meal-at-a-time microwaves.

With this long enterprise experience, the SmartShelf is not exactly a first-generation product.

“We’ve refined our algorithm over the years to be able to cook anything,” Youngblood explains, including pastries, soups, and even reheating pizza so “it’ll taste like it just came out of a New York City pizza oven. We’re pretty confident it’s bulletproof, so to speak, in terms of whatever challenge it may be presented with.”

Corporate employee interactions with the SmartShelf mean there is also an existing built-in audience on the consumer side, as well as an active fan base.

“We had a customer publish a cookbook just for the oven,” Youngblood notes. “We didn’t even know it. She didn’t tell us until she published it. So, we have a cookbook available. We’ve got a recipe group on Facebook. And if you go to any of the major social media channels, you’ll find thousands of videos of people who’ve posted recipes.”

A Smarter Microwave Replacement?

To be clear, the SmartShelf is not a replacement for a microwave if your cooking goal is instant gratification. A minimum of 20 minutes is needed to reheat a meal, longer for cooking raw food. As a result, unlike a microwave, the SmartShelf “does require forethought,” Youngblood admits. But the SmartShelf cooks drawing much less energy than a microwave.

Both the four- (11.75″ W x 15″ H x 12.625″ D, 24 lbs.) and the especially the eight-shelf (27.7″ W x 15″ H x 12.625″ D, 47 lbs.) SmartShelf ovens take up more countertop space than a microwave, toaster, or convection oven as well, and their shelves are not removable, limiting the height of what the SmartShelf can cook to around three inches.

Unlike a microwave, however, a SmartShelf Oven can cook several meals, including both hot lunches and hot dinners, simultaneously – each SmartShelf oven cooks independently, which creates a tranche of un-microwave usage cases. SmartShelf can prepare a variety of meals for a large family or for a dinner party that can be eaten as a group or separately at different times of the day. For seniors living independently or in an assisted living facility, entire meals can be prepared without assistance or the worry of being burned – all food and cooking containers are heated only to serving temperature.

Another SmartShelf advantage over a microwave is taste. “Microwaves are fast, but they don’t do really well with nutrition or texture or flavor,” Youngblood explains. “If you cook the same meal in a microwave and then cook the same meal in our oven or a conventional oven, 99 times out of 100 you’ll know which one cooked in which oven because microwaves actually strip out the flavor.”

They Cost How Much?

SmartShelf’s one consumer product drawback is its initial price – $1,500 for the four-shelf version, $2,500 for the eight-shelf.

“We are a bit anxious about approaching the consumer market with a $1,500 appliance,” Youngblood admits. “It requires a change of habit, and old habits die hard.”

As such, Youngblood seeks “retailers who want to be able to offer a high-end product, a niche product, a specialty product.” Youngblood hopes that initial consumer volume will enable the company to eventually bring down the price.

And who does Youngblood think those initial customers are? “Given the trends – work from home, large families, lots of folks living under one roof, senior elder assisted living, packaged meals services such as Factor… We think the time is right for this product.”

HotLogic is currently talking with large distributors and hopes to get the SmartShelf Oven on retail shelves as soon as possible.

See also: CES 2026: Anker Broadens Product Lines