The Rotimatic which can create perfect flatbread in minutes. (via Rotimatic)
Yes, there is now a robot for everything and this robot is making me hungry. It is called the Rotimatic and can make perfect roti, flatbread, or wraps in under a minute according to the company. It has three hoppers which you fill with flour, water, and oil. Then, you can specify the type of flour, quantity of oil, desired thickness of the batter, and bake time to make different types of flatbread. The Rotimatic also senses when the batter needs adjustments and adds more flour, water, or oil as necessary. It also seems to make very little mess which allows you to easily clean it by detaching the mixer inside the robot.
I must say, this robot is impressive and the idea is mouthwatering. Well, that was until I saw the price tag! If you pre-order the Rotimatic, it will cost you $600. If that isn’t heart-stopping enough, the full retail value will be $1000 for those who don’t pre-order and wait for Rotimatic to hit the shelves – of the bourgeois cooking shops, of course. Now, I am not obsessed with flatbread, but after seeing the commercial for the product I thought, ‘I would definitely buy this if it was $500 cheaper!’
It is being marketed toward health-conscious consumers.. The entrepreneur points out the benefits of eating freshly baked bread without preservatives at home. They also show some pretty impressive types of bread you can make by adjusting the settings and adding spices and herbs.
However, the Rotimatic is supposed to churn out flatbreads at a cost of $0.05 per bread. This means you would have to eat 20,000 flatbreads to equal the retail value of this robot. That translates into eating more than 18 flatbreads everyday for 3 years in order to re-coup your ‘investment’ while the robot still works and depreciates in value. I don’t know about you, but I would probably be the size of a whale if I ate 18 roti every day for 3 years!
Perhaps this machine is better equipped to feed the robot uprising than the Bakebot—a robot developed by an MIT grad student that that can bake chocolate chip cookies from scratch. If you have Benjamins lying around that you are willing to waste on convenience, then buy it. The rest of us will have to roll up our sleeves and get messy.
C
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