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You had one job! Kitchen appliances that only do one thing

It slices! It dices! It makes julienne fries! Show us a ‘80s infomercial, and we’ll show you a product that screams multitasker. For example, the Salad Shooter is a shredder and slicer. But there are lots of one-trick ponies when it comes to kitchen appliances. Their purpose in life is to do one thing. In some cases, it’s to do one thing well. In others, it’s to gather dust along with other Christmas gifts gone wrong. Of course, once people buy some of these devices, they find alternative uses for the counter-space stealers. Like waffle iron pizza! Ingenuity aside, these appliances were still manufactured for a single task. From the wonderful to the worthless, here’s a look at kitchen appliances that only do one thing.

Jenny McGrath
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Jenny McGrath is a senior writer at Digital Trends covering the intersection of tech and the arts and the environment. Before…
How to build a smart kitchen
A smart kitchen.

Planning a kitchen remodel or renovation is a big step. Along with thinking about what material to use for new counters and cabinet colors, it’s a good time to consider what technology you want in your kitchen, too. A renovation is the perfect time to build a smart kitchen with all the connected technology that you’ve been wanting. Interested? Here’s what to consider and why.
Think about what you cook in the kitchen
Smart technology works best when it's applied to something that you’re already doing every day. Before you start looking at appliances (and they all don't have to be from the same brand), think about how you use your kitchen. What sort of meals do you cook most often? Do you use the stovetop the most, or the oven for baking, or the microwave? Are you more of a slow cooker chef? Considering these things now will help you make the right decisions later. Once you know what you use the most, use that information to inform your budget and how you'll spend it. Then, we can move on to the fun stuff!
Choose a smart home platform you like

You may also want to take a look at the apps offered by major kitchen brands like LG, Samsung, and others to see if there’s a particular app design or compatibility feature you want. For example, you may want to make sure that your appliances work with a certain voice assistant like Alexa. We also suggest getting appliances that are sure to work with the new universal smart home protocol Matter, which makes it easier to control them with an app of your choice.
Shop for a connected smart oven

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Best Buy’s Memorial Day appliance sale is NOW LIVE!
Samsung 28-cubic foot smart side-by-side refrigerator in stainless steel in a kitchen.

Retailers have started rolling out this year's Memorial Day sales, allowing shoppers to get a head start with their planned purchases for the holiday. Best Buy, for example, has launched its appliance deals for Memorial Day, so if you're planning to buy a refrigerator, washer, dryer, or other appliance for your home, you might want to begin browsing the offers to see if anything will catch your eye.

There are a lot of options from Best Buy's Memorial Day appliance sale so it will take some time to go through all of them, but feel free to look around, especially if you're hoping that a specific product has its price slashed ahead of the holiday. To help you out, here are some of the best deals that are available right now, though you have to hurry if you want to avail yourself of them because stocks may run out at any moment.

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7 things you didn’t know the Echo Show 15 could do
Amazon Echo Show 15 Smart Display on a wall.

The Amazon Echo Show 15 is currently the largest smart display on the market. At 15-inches on the diagonal, it's a massive device with a lot of functionality packed into its borders. The Echo Show 15 can do everything you expect other Alexa smart displays to do, including controlling your smart home, answering questions, playing games, and more.

But the features don't stop there. The Echo Show 15 has several lesser-known, almost hidden features that make it even more useful than it might seem at first glance.

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