Jasmina Grase and Nils Chudy took inspiration from Leyla Acaroglu's TED talk, Paper Beats Plastic. The fact that the energy wasted from overfilling electric kettles could light all the streetlights in England struck them as untapped potential to make a difference in energy use. As students at Design Academy Eindhoven they created MIITO and are now running a Kickstarter campaign to fund the sustainable alternative to the electric kettle.
Using an induction heating element that is placed into the user's teacup or drink vessel and the MIITO unit itself liquids are heated to boiling. Estimates are that a 200 milliliter glass cup of water can be taken to boiling in 60 seconds, and that a ceramic kettle holding 500 millliliters can be heated in two and a half minutes.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/747044530/miito-the-sustainable-alternative-to-the-electric
Pressing the button on the base alerts the heating sensors to start the induction process, and when the sensors see that the water has boiled they turn off the heat. The user can also turn off the heat by pushing the button again. MIITO should work with any liquid, and the campaign video even mentions warming baby food in the device.
MIITO is a device that is very simple, elegant and easy to use. The design is incredible and the idea that using only what you need to make the world a more inhabitable, sustainable place is wonderful. I would like more technical details about the sensors and the heating process. The campaign page shows that several programming and electronics iterations have been made and an electrical engineer was brought onto the team to finalize the internal components.
Next steps in the process are consumer certifications for North America, design for manufacturing activities and the first round of mass produced components and assemblies. The goal of $167,000 funding dollars has been more than tripled at this opint and units purchased during this Kickstarter run of MIITOs will ship in April 2016.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/747044530/miito-the-sustainable-alternative-to-the-electric