NutriBullet Balance shows how many calories hide in your smoothies
The blender has a built-in scale and Bluetooth connection so you can use an app to build a better smoothie.
NutriBullet's newest blender will use Bluetooth and a built-in scale to help you perfect your smoothie habit. The $180 NutriBullet Balance will connect to a companion app (available for iOS and Android) that walks you step by step through smoothie recipes and gives you the exact nutritional information of your liquid meal, the company announced at the Smart Kitchen Summit trade show in Seattle this week. The Balance is available for preorder, and it will begin to ship in November.
Here's how the Balance works: You select a recipe in the app (in addition to smoothies there are also recipes for blender-friendly dishes like soups and dips). You place the blending cup on the Balance and begin to add ingredients per the app's instructions. The blender measures the weight of your ingredients as you add them to the cup and sends that info to the app. Once you hit the right amount of an ingredient, the app dings and tells you to move on to the next step. You can also press the button on the Balance to move forward to the next step.
The app also features a recipe recorder so you can save your own, original smoothie recipes.
This smart blender is the latest product collaboration from a smart scale maker called the Perfect Company. Perfect makes $50-$100 connected scales that use weight to guide you through recipes for baking, blending and drinking. Last year, Perfect announced a Vitamix-branded $100 smart scale that gives you the option to tailor recipes to your specific Vitamix model. The partnerships with the high-end Vitamix and the more budget-friendly NutriBullet put Perfect in a prime position to lock down the smart smoothie market.
