Barilla's Passive Cooker Is an Open Source Arduino Nano 33 BLE Gadget Designed to Save Energy

Italian pasta specialist Barilla is looking to help people lower their energy bills and reduce their environmental impact with a system for "passive cooking" — using a smart timing device, based on an Arduino Nano 33 BLE board, it's releasing as build-it-yourself open hardware.

"Passive cooking is an alternative way of cooking pasta that reduces CO₂e emissions by up to 80 percent in comparison with the traditional method," the company explains in an announcement brought to our attention by the Arduino blog. "To adopt it, simply turn off the stove after two minutes of active cooking, cover the pot with a lid and wait for the right cooking time. Of course, as with all cooking methods, following the correct timing is crucial."

It's here that Barilla has turned to technology to help. The company's Passive Cooker is a gadget designed to be stuck on the lid of any cooking pot to monitor its temperature. When the water reaches boiling point, an alert is transmitted via Bluetooth Low Energy to a companion smartphone app telling the user to add the pasta; after the first two minutes, another prompt is sent to turn the heat off; finally, the device times the "passive" part of the cooking process and lets the user know when the pasta is ready.

Interestingly, while Barilla has developed the Passive Cooker, companion app, and timing chart for its various pasta products in-house, it's not releasing the device as a commercial product; instead, it's releasing it under an open source license. "We wanted to make this project open source so everyone can make their copy and even improve it if they want to," the company explains. "If you are a maker, you can download all the materials to print out your Passive Cooker [and] download the instructions to correctly assemble the device."

The hardware itself is 3D-printed in a biodegradable plastic good up to 150°C (302°F), which houses an Arduino Nano 33 BLE development board, a thermister, a resistor, a capacitor, and a battery holder for two AAA lithium batteries — plus a switch so the device can be powered off when it's not in use.

Those interested in making their own Passive Cooker can find the print files, source code, and instructions on the Barilla website under an unspecified open source license; the company has also launched a WhatsApp bot that provides the timing information but without the benefit of temperature monitoring.