Nymble 2024: The Chef on Autopilot
Raghav Gupta, Co-Founder, and CEO of Nymble explains how this robotic kitchen assistant can seriously revolutionize the way we approach mealtimes and cooking.
What exactly is Nymble and who’s it designed for?
Nymble is here to help busy people around the world eat freshly prepared meals every single day, by spending minimum time in the kitchen. This is thanks to our first robot chef which helps people cook a variety of meals at the press of a button.
The customer simply chooses the recipe they want from the options on the appliance screen, introduces the necessary ingredients, taps “cook” and hey presto! – their freshly made meal is delivered!
We’ve seen that busy people from all walks of life can benefit from Nymble such as working parents. Often, people who have little time to shop, prepare, and cook meals, but who still want to eat freshly cooked meals, have resorted to meal kits, but this only solves half of the problem – you still have to cook the meal.
How did the idea for Nymble first come about?
My co-founder and I come from traditional Indian families where the mother does all the cooking for the entire family while holding down a job. It was very stressful for our mothers while we were growing up.
My co-founder’s mother asked him one day whether he would cook the evening meal for the family. He gladly did this, but he soon realized he didn’t want to spend his life this way. My mother also got me in the kitchen, and soon both of us were adamant that there must be a simpler way. This is how we came up with the idea of a robot that does it all for you.
We’ve not yet commercialized our product but have been gaining valuable knowledge from potential customers. We recently completed our Alpha trials where 100 people in the San Francisco Bay area got to keep our robot for over a week.
Anyone who would like to be part of a trial, and also lives in the California region, can go onto our website and sign up for the trial. They’ll get to keep Nymble for a period of time or to purchase the product and our services for a reduced rate.
Our initial data suggests that people are using our robot approximately twelve times a week – or twice a day across six days. We’re now looking at how to add value to our customers; suggesting recipes and shipping groceries, etc.
We hope to launch Nymble in March 2022.
How did your background influence the line of work you’re in today?
I’m an electrical engineer and my partner is a mechanical engineer. So in addition to our family background, we have the skills and knowledge – mainly pertaining to electronics, mechanics, and software – which are needed to create a robotics company. We merged our skill sets together along with our cooking backgrounds and gave birth to Nymble.
Is this a unique concept and technology?
We’ve seen similar concepts in the field of sous-vide and oven-based cooking. We haven’t yet seen any other robots that can fit into the kitchen of a customer and automate stovetop cooking like ours does.
Nymble is set up in a way that there’s a compartment for oil and water, a compartment for spices, and four different compartments for all the other ingredients. Once the recipe has been chosen on the screen, it gives precise directions on what to add and when to add it.
It knows how to give instructions, and detect when the pasta has been cooked for example, because of its numerous sensors; one that detects a change in weight, a camera that detects a change in color, change in texture, and change in temperature.
How user-friendly is Nymble and what happens if something goes wrong?
It’s VERY user-friendly from a customer’s perspective. It’s similar to a car, very simple on the outside, and highly complex on the inside.
We’re actually carrying out a lot of reliability testing at this time and ensuring that over an extended period of time, nothing breaks down. If something happens to go wrong, we provide 24/7 technical support for those who are trying out Nymble in their homes.
Who can best benefit from your product?
Typically working professionals, with or without children, and people who cook daily.
If someone cooks between two to six times per week, they’re very likely to benefit from Nymble. If you prefer to cook all your meals, then you’re unlikely to need Nymble.
Is Nymble battery operated?
Currently, Nymble isn’t battery-driven. Some battery advancements will need to happen though. I believe it’s like induction – we don’t see the proliferation of induction stovetops that are battery-driven. So for now Nymble won’t be your camping/outdoor buddy.
How has the pandemic impacted your business?
There have been major supply chain issues across the world. There are many product shortages worldwide and many factories have had to close their doors. I think that we would’ve started our trials a lot earlier had it not been for COVID-19.
How do you see the growth of Nymble over the next few years?
We’re hoping that over the next few years we’ll bring a similar change to the kitchen as the dishwasher did many years ago. We believe that people’s approach to cooking will shift and cooking will become automated as opposed to being manual, or simply heating up frozen meals.
