There are already AI scales and apps on the market that measure both calories and the nutritional value of the food. But now Qalzy has upped the stakes and launched a kitchen scale with an AI camera built-in, claiming it’s “the world’s first AI-powered kitchen scale”.
With the help of a built-in camera and Open AI's food recognition feature, Qalzy says its kitchen scales take the guesswork out of counting calories. Instead of inputting data by hand, everything is done automatically.
How does it work? The tech recognizes raw, cooked, and packaged foods, including those with complex ingredients. Everything then syncs to the Qalzy app automatically.
You can’t get your hands on a Qalzy just yet, but you can pre-order the product through Kickstarter, with a 40% early bird discount. After that, you can expect to pay $269.
Although I’ve never been one to count calories, I can see the benefit of using a device that reduces the hassle and time drain of inputting data. That's the reason behind the product’s development.
Kostas Koukoravas, co-founder and CEO of Qalzy, says, “We built Qalzy because counting calories was just too much work — most people gave up after a few days. Now you can press a button and it figures everything out for you. It’s like having a personal nutritionist built into your kitchen.”
Apart from being a big bonus to those who want to lose or put on weight, it is also a benefit to athletes and anyone who wants to monitor the nutritional value of their food, rather than focussing on calories alone.
How to use the Qalzy scale
Without having tested the Qalzy scale it seems relatively simple to use, although you will need to download the Qalzy app.
You’ll need to start by placing your food on the scale — this can be the whole meal, ingredients or packaged items. The camera captures a photo that identifies the food and weighs it in one step. The information, including calories, macros and nutritional data, will be available in real time on the app’s dashboard.
Is the Qalzy AI-powered kitchen scale a first of its kind?
I checked in with Alex Hughes, AI Editor at Tom’s Guide, to get his view on Qalzy’s new kitchen scale and whether it really is the world’s first AI-powered kitchen scale. He said it’s unlikely to be the first kitchen scale that utilizes AI, but it is possibly the first one using a camera.
Hughes explains, "Qalzy isn't exactly breaking ground here. There are existing AI scales and apps that use AI to analyse images of your food for calories and nutritional values. However, Qalzy could stand out by combining the two, analysing your food through both a camera and scale.”
A particular issue with calorie and nutritional measuring apps and devices in the past has been accuracy, but Hughes feels confident that Qalzy has made inroads, “OpenAI has made huge improvements in its models in recent years so, even though 100% accuracy can't be guaranteed, Qalzy has all the features to suggest a promising product."
I'll soon be testing Cosori's Smart Kitchen Scale, which offers similar functionality to Qalzy's kitchen scale, but without the camera.
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