ome assembly required, though RetroFab tries to make this part easy with color-coded wires and a custom tutorial included.
Right now, the 3D-printed components can look a bit bulky. They fit over your existing knobs and switches, after all. Ramakers says eventually the components used will get smaller, leading to less hefty fixes, but for now, he hopes designers will see the size as an asset to work with — like making a toaster look like a slot machine, for example. If your design-minded friend comes up with such a fix, RetroFab’s creators think one day there might be a database of designs that users could contribute to.
Make it smart
It’s not just an aging population that might benefit from a “RetroFab-ed” kitchen. The program allows you to add interconnected features, like syncing your alarm and lights, for example, as well as sensors and other monitoring devices. First-time cooks could burn way fewer meals with the right equipment.
“Instrumenting pots and pans with additional sensors could show a beginner the right heating settings for making the perfect medium-rare steak or al dente pasta,” says Ramakers.
With 3D printing letting people design and create their own sneakers, a more customized world is on the horizon. While that means we’ll have devices that fit in better with our unique lives, it will also lead to more waste — like if you have to toss out your Revolv smart-home hub because it’s no longer being supported by Nest. Imagine if that happened with your smart fridge or oven. That’s something Ramakers is thinking about: “Especially for expensive appliances and home automation, a modular toolkit, like RetroFab, which enriches the existing infrastructure without requiring permanent structural changes, provides a more durable and reusable solution for physical interfaces in a time when technology advances quickly.”
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