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Whirlpool's Wi-Fi microwave will send a notification to your phone when your food's ready

The world's largest appliance manufacturer will create an over-the-range microwave oven that you can monitor from your smart device. (No camera, yet.)

Ashlee Clark Thompson Associate Editor
Ashlee spent time as a newspaper reporter, AmeriCorps VISTA and an employee at a healthcare company before she landed at CNET. She loves to eat, write and watch "Golden Girls" (preferably all three at the same time). The first two hobbies help her out as an appliance reviewer. The last one makes her an asset to trivia teams. Ashlee also created the blog, AshleeEats.com, where she writes about casual dining in Louisville, Kentucky.
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Ashlee Clark Thompson
2 min read

Whirlpool 's Wi-Fi-enabled microwave oven will send push notifications to your smart phone when your meal is finished, according to documents the company filed this week with the US Federal Communication Commission, as first reported by analyst Lee Ratliff of IHS Markit. The built-in Wi-Fi will also let you start the microwave from your phone.

The microwave is part of Whirlpool's upcoming line of Wi-Fi-enabled appliances the company displayed at this year's CES trade show. The line, which will include the microwave, two ranges and a double wall oven, will work with the Whirlpool app's new Scan-to-Cook feature. With this feature, you use your device's camera to scan the barcodes of packaged foods, and the app will find the cooking instructions from a database. Then, the app will automatically send those instructions to your appliance via Wi-Fi. Whirlpool previously said it will release the Scan-to-Cook appliances this summer in the US.

Whirlpool's Smart Appliances and Features

The FCC filings show that you'll have even more control over your microwave through your phone in addition to the Scan-to-Cook capability we first saw at CES.

Whirlpool, the world's largest appliance manufacturer, has been ambitious in adding connectivity to its products. Some Whirlpool appliances already work with Amazon Dash replenishments and the Nest Learning Thermostat . And the company announced in January that many of its smart appliances will work with Alexa, Amazon's voice-activated digital assistant, starting this year. With these integrations already in place, it might only be a matter of time until we can talk to our microwave with some help from Alexa-enabled smart speakers like the Amazon Echo .