5 Smart Devices to Make Thanksgiving Dinner a Little Smarter

From turning off the lights to keeping burglars at bay, smart home technology has made practically every aspect of our lives easier. Holiday cooking is no exception. With these five smart devices, holiday cooks will have a lot more to be thankful for.

Egg Minder

When you’re out shopping, list in hand, for a holiday meal, it’s easy to miss some things. Did you check how many eggs were left in the fridge? Are they even still good anymore? Should you buy another box, or risk not having enough?

With the Egg Minder, you can answer all of those questions via an app on your smartphone. The smart egg tray tracks how many eggs you have, determines how long they’ve been there, and sends you push notifications when you’re running low. LED lights even let you know which egg is the oldest to keep any from going bad.

Drop Scale

Thanksgiving almost always requires a ton of baking, even if you’re not really a baker. With the Drop Scale, pie crust, cranberry bread, and other baking recipes are immensely simpler to execute. It doesn’t hurt that they leave fewer dishes to clean, too.

The Drop Scale connects wirelessly to its own smartphone and tablet app, which shows you step by step instructions that automatically progress when you add each ingredient—handy if you want to avoid getting the screen dirty. And since every cup of flour and dash of salt is measured not by measuring cups but by weight, many recipes require as little as one bowl to clean.

Belkin Crock-Pot Smart Slow Cooker

Slow cookers are a godsend during busy holiday cooking sprees: you can simply dump in your ingredients, set the temperature, and come back hours later to a completed sweet-potato casserole or beef roast. Add Wi-Fi to this sweet situation, and things get really easy.

The Belkin Crock-Pot connects to your home network to let you control its every function on your smartphone. Visiting neighbors at a crucial step? Turn the heat up to get that irresistibly crisp skin. Held up in holiday traffic? Turn the whole thing off. It’ll even give you a notification when your dish is complete.

HAPIfork

With so many main dishes, sides, and delicious desserts, it’s easy to overdo it at Thanksgiving. And while a little indulgence is a good thing every once in a while, shoveling forkfuls of in your mouth between political commentary with extended family members is hardly the way to enjoy every flavor.

Enter the HAPIfork. This electronic fork is designed to help train you to slow down and enjoy every morsel you eat. It monitors how quickly you bring each serving to your mouth and uses gentle vibrations to remind you to slow down and savor. It even keeps track over the long term, uploading your mealtime data to an online dashboard where you can track your progress.

LG Smart ThinQ Oven

Turkey, you’ve met your match. The LG Smart ThinQ Oven lets you control its temperature and turn it off remotely, so big feasts in the process of cooking can be micromanaged from miles away. It connects to the LG cooking management app, so every adjustment can be performed right from your smartphone. It doesn’t hurt that the oven’s infrared heating element doesn’t require preheating.

Growth Geeks and UrbanBound: The First Moderne Accelerator Participants

On Tuesday, Moderne Ventures announced the first two companies that have been accepted into the Moderne Accelerator, a program that provides resources to technology companies in order to successfully launch them into the tech marketplace. 

By providing these companies essential education and market exposure, plus access to the Moderne Network—a collection of more than 200 brokers, developers, financial institutions, and other important experts willing to offer their knowledge, not to mention a chance to earn their business—the program is designed to help them seize multi-billion opportunities and grow their business at a much faster rate than they could alone. 

Growth Geeks

Growth Geeks is a marketplace that connects businesses to freelance marketing talent. Good marketing is essential for a successful business, but hiring a full marketing agency is often cost prohibitive for smaller businesses and independent contractors. On the Growth Geeks website, these businesses will find hundreds of marketing experts, each of whom work on a gig-by-gig basis and come individually approved by the Growth Geeks team. In return, marketers with unique expertise, such as in content marketing, social media, or analytics, can make the most of their skills while keeping a flexible schedule

UrbanBound

UrbanBound seeks to make relocating for a job a less stressful and less expensive process. New hires start with a personalized to-do list filled with tasks ranging from finding housing to ordering internet service to learning about their new city. Every step of the way, the UrbanBound website offers tailored assistance: a list of cable providers with rates and ratings, a thorough introduction to the city and its sights, even a personalized  budget and expense list. This leg up on the relocation process helps new hires settle into their new surroundings quickly, reducing moving stress and making them more likely to stay at their new company.

Yahoo Finance: Hypergrowth industry accelerator created by Moderne Ventures™ selects its first participants: UrbanBound and Growth Geeks

"The Moderne Accelerator™ announced the first two participants accepted into its hypergrowth industry accelerator: UrbanBound (backed by Grotech and Starvest) and Growth Geeks (backed by Techstars). The Moderne Accelerator launches technology companies ($0-$15M in revenues) into the world's largest industries: real estate, mortgage, finance, insurance and home services, each multi-trillion dollar marketplaces that together represent over 20 percent of the US GDP and are ripe for innovation. The Moderne Accelerator provides education, exposure and access to the Moderne Network™: over 200 franchise groups, independent brokerages, commercial real estate brokers, developers, property managers and financial institutions who provide valuable insight, knowledge and a chance to earn their business..." Read More

Hyde Park Angels: Build and Maintain Strong Advisor, Board Member, and Investor Relationships

"However, since these relationships can develop into much more, it’s extremely important to choose them wisely. As Constance Freedman pointed out, you need to 'find those advisors and mentors who are a target customer or group that you’re targeting for your product or service.' Finding advisors who are subject matter experts is critical, as are finding those who can fill in gaps or strengthen your weak spots, but ultimately, finding links to customers is the different between an unsuccessful company and a successful one. If your advisor is a customer or part of a customer company, you can open up crucial sales channels." Read More

Inman Select: Real estate tech gets new patron

"Real estate tech startups will soon be jockeying for a new potent source of funding and strategic support -- if they aren't already. Moderne Ventures -- an early-stage venture fund launched by the woman who founded the National Association of Realtors' (NAR) venture initiatives -- is pulling together funds and a far-reaching network of industry partners to shovel capital and strategic support behind startups innovating in the real estate, mortgage, finance, insurance and home services industries." Read More