WAN AICHEF ULTRA Earns 2026 IDEA Recognition, Rethinking AI Cooking for Everyday Life

A Load and Go Cooking Experience Designed Around Real Household Use

LAS VEGAS, Sept. 17, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- A weeknight dinner might begin with salmon, chicken or a ready-to-cook meal picked up from Costco. With many conventional cooking appliances, the cook still chooses the mode, temperature and time, then returns to check doneness and make adjustments.

WAN AICHEF ULTRA was designed around a different experience: load the food, choose what you want to make, confirm the program, and go. This is what WAN AICHEF calls the "Load and Go" experience.

WAN AICHEF announced that WAN AICHEF ULTRA, its flagship AI cooking system, has been selected as a Professional Category Finalist in the 2026 International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA), presented by the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA). The product was developed for real households around a practical question: how much routine cooking judgment can the appliance take on while keeping the process visible and the user in control?

A Different Cooking Experience

A familiar cooking workflow asks the user to make a series of decisions and keep an eye on the food as it cooks. Ultra takes on more of that routine. For supported ingredients, AI vision can identify the food and recommend a program. Once the user confirms it, the system monitors conditions and adjusts power and timing as cooking progresses.

"We began by asking which decisions people repeat every night and which of those the appliance could responsibly take on," said Stanley Huo, CEO of WAN AICHEF. "The change is not simply what the appliance can do, but what the user no longer has to do. Progress must remain clear, and control must remain with the cook."

How Ultra Reads and Responds to Food

Ultra uses visual and thermal feedback instead of relying only on preset time and temperature. A 12-megapixel AI camera and Heimann infrared thermal imaging gather information, while NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano provides on-device computing. The system combines these inputs to guide heat adjustments toward the selected result.

In testing of supported cooking tasks, the system achieved temperature-control precision of approximately ±3.2°F under specified conditions; results varied by food, cookware and program. Dry-burn protection, cookware detection, door-open auto-stop and a child lock provide safeguards for everyday operation. The screen keeps settings and progress visible, so the system can handle routine monitoring while keeping the user informed and in control.

Designed Around Real Household Use

WAN AICHEF has trained Ultra's AI to recognize and cook a growing range of foods and ready-to-cook products available from Costco, Whole Foods Market, Safeway and other U.S. retailers, as well as meal-kit services such as HelloFresh.

For supported items, users can place the food in compatible cookware inside Ultra and follow the on-screen cooking recommendations without having to translate package directions into appliance modes, temperatures and timing. The company continues to expand the range of supported foods and formats.

Personalization is tied to the cooking result. One person may prefer salmon softer and more tender, while another wants it more well done. Over time, feedback about texture and doneness can help future cooking recommendations better match each person or household's preferences.

That difference is most noticeable in everyday use. A home user in Florida prepared salmon with asparagus and garlic butter shrimp and said she did not have to "constantly watch the food or worry about overcooking it." In Atlanta, a mother used Ultra to cook a whole chicken and said she spent less time checking on the food and more time with her family. These experiences reflect what Ultra is designed to reduce: the attention and repeated monitoring that everyday cooking often requires.

Recognition for Experience Centered Design

Ultra's design value does not rest on one camera, processor or temperature figure. It comes from how sensing, software, heat control and interface work together to replace repeated estimates and checks with a visible process that responds to feedback. This integrated experience formed the basis of WAN AICHEF's IDEA submission.

Following earlier recognition from the Red Dot Award, the 2026 IDEA finalist selection provides further professional validation of this design direction. WAN AICHEF ULTRA was designed to make everyday cooking easier to start and manage, with built-in safeguards and less need for continuous attention.

https://www.idsa.org/awards-recognition/idea/idea-gallery/wan-aichef-ultra/

Learn more about WAN AICHEF ULTRA at global.wanaichef.com. ULTRA is also available to explore through Indiegogo.

About the International Design Excellence Awards

The International Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) is an annual design competition presented by IDSA. For more than 45 years, the program has recognized significant achievements in industrial design and work intended to create meaningful benefit for users, organizations and society.

Media Contact

Sylvia Liang
International Business Director
WAN AICHEF
732 S 6TH ST #7231
LAS VEGAS, NV 89101, United States
[email protected]
global.wanaichef.com

SOURCE wan AIChef