Remember that year when everything in the world took on the color of brightly colored iMacs? You could buy a bright orange dustbuster, a translucent blue toaster, and a shockingly red George Foreman grill. I’m pretty sure my N64 was purple (and this is totally unrelated, but when I think of N64 I think of the countless hours I spent playing Beetle Adventure Racing while listening to Eminem’s Slim Shady LP… both pinnacles in their respective fields). I’m guessing this was done so that folks could color coordinate their home appliances with their desktop PC – my goofy computer is see-through yellow, and so is my vacuum! I can see the collected dirt and dust AT ALL TIMES and I’m living in the future. Also, I’ve named my two sons Ross and Chandler because it’s the 90’s and I have no regrets.
Fruitifying our appliances didn’t do much to their core functionality though. I mean, you still chopped stuff in your food processor, it just looked like it was made of Lego bricks. But what if there was a way to add bleeding edge technology to something you use everyday, and not only change the way you use the appliance, but also increase its functionality by like a hundred billion percent? Ladies and gentlemen, say hello to Twettle. The tea kettle with a Twitter account.
Two London designers decided to come up with a get-rich-quick scheme whilst waiting for a bartender to mix their drinks. The result? A kitchen appliance which could communicate through Twitter. And what kitchen appliance would any self-respecting Englishman choose? An electric kettle, or the Twettle.
The Twettle works via WiFi, connecting directly to the internet and tweeting when it has boiled.
— Wired
Hey does anyone have a free USB port? I need to install a new OS on the kettle. Guys? Hey guys?
You see, because boiling water is unpredictable, imprecise and depressingly analog. Cave men did this shit pretty much the same way! Just sitting around, waiting for their water to boil in a bird’s stomach or whatever while they picked wildebeest gristle from their teeth. With Twettle technology, Ook could be doing something more productive like foraging or smashing a weaker neanderthal’s skull with a rock instead of staring at the magic sorcery that makes stuff boil. Check your tweets Ook, your water is piping hot!
Even Wired realizes that it’s pretty easy to tell when the water in your tea kettle is boiling in your house since you’re usually in your house when you have a tea kettle on the stove in your house. “But, in, say, an office, it might be helpful to know that the water is done so you can rush to the kitchenette with a sachet of powdered soup, or even to catch up on gossip as others make their tea.” Or, the office cut-up could follow your Twettle account, get notified the instant the water is boiled and then rush to the kitchenette to pour the boiled water down the drain. Meanwhile, you stand there with your stupid sachet of powdered soup and catch up on the office gossip, which is, “That guy is such a dick, and we need to detwettlefriend him immediately.”
In my humbled humbling opinion, the Twettle is kind of stupid. Boiling water takes about 2 minutes, and you’re not really gaining anything by being notified the SECOND your water starts to boil. Here’s a real world example – sometimes I become so absorbed in working or writing or contemplating life’s greatest mysteries that I won’t hear my tea kettle whistling (which is like the reel-to-reel version of boiling water notification as opposed to the laserdisc-like Twettle) in the kitchen. But usually I break out of my trance-like state a minute or so later and I’m rewarded with boiling water that I forgot I even put on the stove. Hooray!
Would my life be any better if my kettle sent me a DM and was all like, “@John_TMH – ur water is hot! get on that it b4 it evaporates! ur pal – twettlebot” No. I mean, maybe? No, actually, I’m going to stick with no. Here’s what I want instead of the Twettle: a Leffle. It’s a waffle iron that sends me a letter in the mail when I want waffles. Then when I get the letter, there’s a coupon for syrup alongside delicious recipes. Get on it science.