The Best Products We Saw at the 2024 Inspired Home Show

Every year, the Reviews team goes to the Inspired Home Show, a major housewares convention that takes place in Chicago. We walk for miles and miles within the convention center, looking at thousands—maybe even millions—of products from companies around the world. 

Cookware, bakeware, knives, small appliances, tools, and gadgets—we take in a true range of the good, the bad, and the ugly.  

Do you really need that “smart” cutting board with a built-in digital display that teaches you how to cook? (And, at $700 for the unit and $10/month for the optional class subscription, is it even worth it?) 

What about the collaboration that cast-iron stalwart Lodge is doing with Dolly Parton?

In this article, we separate the best from the rest, highlighting a dozen of the most promising new products we saw at the show. (Spoiler: Dolly's cast-iron cookware and the smart cutting board didn't make our list.)

Several established appliance companies are now entering the coffee market. Bosch is a company best known in the United States for its dishwashers, ranges, and refrigerators. This year, they’re launching some fancy new coffee machines that automatically make espressos, lattes, and cappuccinos at the press of a button. These machines have previously been successful in Europe, so we’ll be interested to see how they do over here. 

One of our favorite soda-maker manufacturers is branching out to the coffee world. Later this year, Aarke will be releasing an automatic drip coffee maker and a burr coffee grinder. The two appliances can be connected via a cable so that they can “talk” to each other, with the burr grinder calculating the amount of ground coffee it’ll produce based on the weight of the water in the coffee machine.

The design adheres seamlessly to Aarke’s iconic style: sleek, minimalist, and modern. We’re excited to test both models when they make it to the market. 

Engineering-focused coffee brand AeroPress is readying itself to launch a new AeroPress that comes in a package with a standalone insulated travel mug. The portable, compact gadget is about the size of a 16-ounce tallboy beer can and can be thrown into a backpack to make coffee on the go. Its lightweight and multipurpose design (the insulated travel mug can be used to store water) cater to the outdoors community, who prioritize space and weight when they’re on the trails. 

Omega produced a new juicer that promises to ease many of the “pain points” of juicing, including having to cut vegetables and fruit into small pieces and feed them one by one into a feed tube and scrubbing many parts after you’ve enjoyed the fresh juice.

The new model, the Omega Effortless Batch Juicer, lets you load up a big 68-ounce, food processor–style workbowl, including whole uncut apples and oranges, and process it all in one batch. Blades pop out to rinse clean, and with no metal juicing screen, Omega says that you won’t need to detail its sharp mesh with the usual tiny brush. 

Wine savers have been on the market for a while, but gadgets with new sustainable designs are showing up on the scene. The Vacu Vin Wine Saver Loop promises to keep wine fresher longer with its simple-to-use pump and vacuum seal stopper.

To use it, you place the stopper inside the bottle's opening and then put the pump over it and use the loop-shaped handle to extract the air. Vacu Vin claims the pump is easy to pull off once all the air is released. 

Like many other products we noted at the show, it’s made from 98% post-consumer recycled plastic and has a modern, streamlined design. They come in trendy colors such as jade, terra cotta, and sand. 

Mini ice is all the rage—it’s perfect for cocktails, soft drinks, iced coffee, and more. But making it can be a pain and countertop ice machines are pricey. The Tovolo Mini Ice Cylinder Squeeze & Release seeks to solve that problem. This silicone ice mold is lined with 200 nooks; each purchase comes with a set of two. 

We saw a live demonstration at the show and were able to try it out ourselves. First, you fill the mold to the water line and seal it with the lid. After the mold has chilled for 4 to 6 hours, gently run it under warm water. Remove the lid and squeeze the mold to release the ice. Our first impressions were that it was easy and fun to use! 

The rampant popularity of both indoor and outdoor pizza ovens is clearly front-of-mind for many companies at the Housewares Show. We saw many new models that are obviously meant to compete with our favorite pizza ovens, the Ooni Volt, Breville Pizzaiolo, and Ooni Kodas. 

And most, including the Cuisinart Pizza Oven, were substantially less expensive than our favorites. None of our current favorites are cheap, so it’ll be really exciting to see if any of the new models can perform at a similar level for much less money.

An exception to the trend: Ooni is launching the Koda 2 Max, an even bigger version of the Koda, its gas-powered outdoor pizza oven. We’ve loved the 16-inch and 12-inch versions. Will we also love the 2 Max, with its 24-inch chamber? We’ll soon find out.

Outdoor cooking is hotter than ever (sorry, we couldn’t resist!). And Le Creuset’s jumping on the trend with the Alpine Outdoor Collection, a small group of black cast-iron pans and utensils for the grill, including a pizza pan, skillet, and square perforated grill basket, all with large, looping pairs of space-saving handles and low, wide profiles. 

Cuisinart has entered the outdoor cooking game too. The brand unveiled Cuisinart Wok Station, which comes with a 50,000 BTU burner and nestling rings that are designed to fit round- and flat-bottomed woks and cookware snugly. The whole setup is more or less the size of an outdoor grill, with ample space to store accessories underneath the burner and a flat surface for preparing ingredients. 

Victoria Cast Iron, a family-run company that makes our Best Buy tortilla press, showcased its all-new Victoria Signature Series lightweight cast iron, using a new proprietary formula of iron that is less brittle, allowing the pieces to be made thinner and polished to a smooth sheen. 

The skillets, made in 10 inches, 12 inches, and 13 inches, have open-frame handles to disperse heat, with distinctive gold-toned inserts, just for a bit of style. 

Progressive Prepworks aims to make stale cookies a thing of the past. The new Cookie ProKeeper+ looks like an ordinary storage container but its lid contains a terra cotta disk which the company claims soaks up moisture.

Its rectangular 3-quart design looks like it could hold a full batch of cookies, brownies, or any other baked goods that require air-tight storage. Lastly, it’s stackable, dishwasher-safe, and BPA-free.