Nexgrill made the leap from traditional grills to app connected smart grills with the recent release of their Neevo series. Using their trademarked NEX-fi technology, you can control your cook on your smartphone with the Nexgrill app. Now, Nexgrill has announced plans to expand that technology in the future to more products.
We envision a new backyard experience in which you control your grill, your patio heater and your firepit from your phone. You can kick back, relax and enjoy the cookout.
Ramsay Hawfield, Vice President of Marketing at Nexgrill
Nexgrill doesn’t currently sell patio heaters or firepits, so it’s unclear if they have plans to move into that segment, or if they are leaving it to other manufacturers to make connected products.
Nexgrill is the latest company to make this leap that Traeger paved the way for in 2017 with the release of the first cloud connected grill. It’s also marks the latest event in a dramatic shift for the industry that has historically focused on hardware.
In a recent interview with Nilay Patel for his Decoder podcast, Traeger’s CEO Jeremy Andrus commented that they’ve hit the inflection point where they invest more in software (e.g. server capacity, software development, content development) than grill hardware. This is due to the speed that software innovates compared to grill hardware.
We suspect that Nexgrill and other outdoor cooking companies are on that same trajectory as the industry transforms towards tech.