Speaking of American dinner, "TV dinner". This is a dinner / lunch box sold as frozen food. Hamburger steak and macaroni cheese are on one plate, and you can eat them immediately by heating them in the microwave, so it is a popular menu for Americans.


Designer Steve Gates announced the design concept of the office desktop microwave "brainwave". This is a microwave for those who want to have a "TV dinner" in the office as well.


The characteristic of "brain wave" is that it is thin and does not take up much space. And, even if it is lined up with an office appliance, it has a design that does not feel strange. If the microwave oven had the same design and was placed on the desk for business use, it would not only block the space, but everyone would be scared.


However, because it was smaller and lighter, the operation part of the microwave oven was sacrificed. The "brain wave" does not have dials or buttons that allow you to set "how many minutes do you want to heat?" Or "how many hundreds of watts do you want to heat?" So how does "brainwave" heat a TV dinner to the right temperature?

Gates suggests embedding RFID chips in the plastic knives and forks that come with frozen foods. The TV dinner maker inputs information here on how many watts and how many minutes it should be warmed. By reading it with a "brainwave" RFID reader, proper heating is possible.



“Brainwave” heating information is transmitted to the PC via USB and can be managed by a dedicated app that runs on the PC.



This "brain wave" has not been commercialized yet. But even if it is commercialized, I feel that it will not sell well in Japan. Why? Because TV dinners taste really, really, really sad.