Seergrills reckons its Perfecta AI grill can prepare a steak for you in just 90 seconds

Something like the Seergrills Perfecta could be a touch hit-and-miss for a South African meat junky. Sure, it’s supposed to use AI smarts to cook you the perfect steak (in as little as 90 seconds), but there’s none of the preparation, beer, or woodsmoke locals have come to expect from their seared flesh. (For the record, it’s not a real South African braai unless there’s thornwood involved.)

Still, if all you want to do is kick back and uncap some liquid bread, the Perfecta reckons it’ll do all the other work for you. All you have to do is hand over R105,000 (plus shipping and import fees) and, eventually, stick some meat inside it. The combination of gas and electrical elements, plus AI, should handle just about any deceased animal.

Perfecta fool

There are a few other novelties you’ll have to get used to. The Perfecta cooks both sides of your item at the same time, utilising a ton of sensors and something Seergrills calls an IR Burner. It operates under a similar premise to the Instant Pot, in that you’ll do little flipping and poking, unless it’s flipping through menus and poking at the 7in LCD that acts as an interface between you and Seergrills’ AI chef.

In true tech style, the Perfecta features a quad-core ARM processor and 4GB of RAM, with WiFi and Bluetooth 5.4 as options, in case the scent of perfectly grilled meat isn’t enough of a clue that you should pull your meat out. It also features a speaker — why Seergrills felt it needed to specify that you can’t use its smart grill to record voice is beyond us, though.

The Perfecta starts at R104,000 ($6,000), but shipping to South Africa isn’t an option. That might be a blessing, since the company has been shipping its smart cookware in batches, and its latest, the fifth run, will only start shipping in May next year. If you hang about long enough, the add-on modules that are still in development — the pizza, oven, and rotiserrie functions — might be complete. Then you’ll never have to inspect your meat ever again. Unless you absolutely want to, or you just miss the scent of burning acacia.