It’s hard to get excited about a meal that takes place when you’re half-asleep. To get the day started right, these makers have invented machines that shake up breakfast. Their outlandish appliances might not end up on your table, but they’ll certainly whet your DIY appetite.
Bacon Alarm Clock
Traditional alarm clocks wake you with annoying beeps. Tech entrepreneur Matty Sallin decided to make mornings more pleasant—with a bacon-scented alarm clock. “You probably have a memory of waking up to the smell of breakfast,” Sallin says. “It’s a completely effective alarm.” With help from friends, including engineer Josh Myer, he built a pig-shaped device. Partially inspired by the Easy-Bake oven, it uses two halogen lights to heat up precooked bacon in about 10 minutes. Once he’s awake, Sallin simply eats breakfast in bed.
Waffle-Making Robot
Jon Eivind Stranden, a Norwegian electrical-engineering student, created the WaffleBot to help cook breakfast when he has guests. “It solves the problem of having to constantly fill and empty the waffle iron,” he says. “You just select how many waffles you want, and it does the rest.” At the heart of the WaffleBot is a waffle iron, opened and closed by a motor on a wire, and a custom valve that releases the batter. After a set cooking time, the iron rotates upside down and automatically falls open, releasing a waffle onto a waiting plate.
This article was originally published in the May/June 2016 issue of Popular Science, under the title “Three Projects That Reinvent Breakfast.”
