Akshita Iyer, founder and CEO of OME, is a neuroscience graduate at Duke University, whose entrepreneurial path is caused by a personal experience of a kitchen fire. This critical moment led to the creation of OME, a company dedicated to reimagining the culinary experience through smart home innovation. Under her leadership, OME introduced the patented smart knob, a solution designed to make the kitchen safer and more automated. Iyer also serves on the UL 858 Technical Committee, where she works with industry experts to maintain safety standards for household appliances.
OME is the world’s first smart knob to replace your stove knob to add a real-time remote, automatic shutdown and voice integration to make cooking safer and stress-free. Compatible with most gasoline and electric stoves, OME helps prevent kitchen fires and offers no subscription-free control.
Can you tell us some of your personal journey from Duke University’s neuroscience to being the founder of a smart home technology company?
Honestly, I never expected to end up in the kitchen equipment space. I studied neuroscience at Duke University and planned to attend medical school. After graduation, I worked in the hospital for experience, but during that time, I became obsessed with Shark Tanks. I’m fascinated – not only with the product, but with the people. Many of them are not traditional entrepreneurs. They are just ordinary people who solve personal problems. That really bothers me.
Then something happened in my own home: My mom was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, accidentally left the stove and started a kitchen fire. Thankfully, no one was injured, but it was a wake-up call. I started searching for solutions and assumed that something simple already existed to solve this problem – but I quickly realized how old and underserved the kitchen space was.
Every other part of the house has become smarter – smart thermostats, locks, lights – but the stove, arguably the most dangerous device in the house, has been left behind.
That’s when everything clicks. If there are retrofit solutions for doorbells and thermostats, why not stove? I don’t have a technical background, but I can’t shake the idea and think, “How hard is this?” (Spoiler: It’s hard.) But I fall in anyway – that’s how Ome was born.
What were your biggest challenges in the early stages of building an OME? How did you overcome them?
The transition from Neuroscience and Med School track to creating a tech company was a huge leap. I’m a first time entrepreneur and figured it out when I went. One of the biggest early obstacles is learning how to raise funds. I have no experience in the world of entrepreneurship and initially I thought having a strong idea, engaging product would be enough. I quickly learned that this was not the case. I have to learn how to promote, to whom I sell it to, and how to tailor the information.
For example, I remember selling to an investor whose paper was investing in a B2B SaaS startup (retrospectively completely wrongly suited), and his confusion was obvious. This made me need to do my homework very early on, not only how to tell our story, but also who I want to tell. Fundraising has become as many areas of psychology and strategy as products.
Then the pandemic. Our supply chains are stagnant. We have no access to components, production slows down, and we have early supporters waiting for products we can’t deliver on time. This is a decisive moment for us. We are very honest with our customers – transparency becomes our North Star. Internally, we set up a war room, reevaluate suppliers, and found alternative solutions that could bring production back on track even with limited capacity.
Looking back, these challenges have affected the resilience of our company. We have learned to adapt quickly, communicate clearly and solve problems one at a time. This mindset can still drive how we operate today.
Can you let us quickly break down how the OME smart knob works, and what makes it unique in a smart kitchen space?
OME is the world’s first smart stove knob designed to make cooking safer, easier and more intuitive. This is the only modified device to replace the existing stove knobs and can be installed on almost any gas or electric stove and range in just a few minutes. Once installed, it turns your stove into a smart device that you can monitor and control in real time from anywhere.
What’s different is that it solves one of the most overlooked problems in smart homes: unattended, distracted cooking, which is the main cause of house fires. Our technology offers features such as automatic shutdown in absence, security locks, built-in timer, and hands-free voice control via Amazon Alexa – users can rest assured every time they cook.
But we are not just building a safer stove. Our vision is to create a fully connected kitchen – integrating auxiliary sensors, smart recipe content, and even grocery delivery to simplify and simplify the entire cooking experience.
What sets OME apart is the impact we go beyond individual families. Our platform includes a centralized dashboard that allows property managers in multi-unit buildings such as dormitories, apartments and senior living communities to monitor stove activity remotely and proactively. It’s not just consumer convenience; it’s about public safety, especially in an environment where an event can affect many lives.
While many smart kitchen gadgets add to the mess or offer only niche features, OME offers something that is both important and seamless – a smarter, safer, and more intuitive kitchen that starts with the most commonly used cooking equipment.
You have described your AI perception in your home as “environmental intelligence” rather than app-centric. What does this mean in practice and why it is important?
For me, environmental intelligence means technology that fits into your life – working quietly in the background, learning from your behavior and only stepping in when needed. Today, most smart home products are very application-driven. You must open an app, press the button, and adjust the settings. It’s not very clever – it’s just remote control and has extra steps.
With OME, we want to flip the script and pave the way for the future of your expected risks in your home and take action before you notice the problem. Imagine if you stay for too long, you can turn off the stove, or find patterns that may indicate the problem without having to raise your fingers. The best technology won’t interrupt your life. It will quietly enhance it and ensure you are safe without intrusion.
The smart home market is full of glittering gadgets – how does OME fight this novel bias and support simplicity and trust?
We purposely built something simple. The OME smart knob won’t try flashy. It looks and feels like what it replaces, and that’s the point. It can be installed easily, works quietly and adds real value.
In terms of security, less is more. One does not want another application management or complex interface. They want solutions that feel natural. They want peace of mind. We hear a lot of users say, “It makes sense.” That’s the feedback we work hard.
In your opinion, what is the problem with the industry for what people really want or need from smart home technology?
I think there is a trend of overengineering – more features, more control, more complexity. But most people just want less friction, less friction, less risk, less stuff to manage.
Smart homes should achieve independence and do not require continuous attention. Especially for older people or busy families, technology needs support, not stress. That’s our focus: building technologies that meet real needs in an intuitive way.
You are part of the UL 858 Technical Committee and help determine safety standards. How does this affect OME’s decision?
In the UL 858 Technical Committee, it is incredibly eye-opening. Developing new technologies is one thing. Sitting on the table that really writes safety standards is another. The UL 858 focuses on preventing hazards such as accidental activation and overheating in the electric range, and a large part of this work is figuring out how safety develops as appliances become smarter.
This view directly shapes our approach to OME. We made a very intentional decision that our smart knob needs to be pushed manually to activate – not because it is popular, but because it conforms to the core safety principle: intentional use. We do not allow remote startup because when you deal with fires and gases, there is no room for ambiguity about user intentions.
In these discussions, the consequences of design decisions are measured in life and property – strengthening our commitment to real-world security. This helps us to be clear about our priorities: not only is it smart to build technology, it can be safe by design, trustworthy by default, and always based on the reality of the house.
Why is it important for you to create a transformative solution instead of building a new smart device from scratch?
Accessibility and sustainability have been at the heart of our mission since day one, and that’s why we chose to build a remodeled product.
Replacing the entire stove is just to make it smart and is not realistic for most people. This is expensive and a major purchase decision that usually does not require your equipment to be interrupted or you are building a new home. We see an opportunity to create solutions that people already have. With OME, it takes a few minutes to upgrade your stovetop – no reshaping, no steep learning curve, and no need to replace something that still works.
There is also a deeper sustainability perspective here, which is often overlooked. So many modern equipment are designed for replacement – with short product cycles (fast aging software), parts will fail as early as possible. We are opposing this trend. By extending the life of existing appliances, we are reducing waste and providing smarter options.
For us, innovation is not about starting from scratch. It’s about rethinking what has arrived in the process to make the house safer, smarter, and more sustainable.
How do you think the broader smart home landscape will evolve over the next five years, especially in AI integration?
Over the next five years, I think we will see a fundamental shift from “smart” homes to truly smart homes, and AI will be the driving force behind this change. But this doesn’t look like what we’ve seen today. It won’t be more screens or more control panels. The future is environmental – quiet, context and profound intuition.
Artificial intelligence will become better at learning how we live from routines, preferences, and behavior patterns. We will see systems that automatically intervene, rather than constant notifications and manual inputs, adjusting to assist and protecting us in invisible but meaningful ways. Think of a house that feels risky and reacts immediately without waiting for orders.
This transformation will also redefine what “intelligence” actually means. Currently, there are a large number of connected devices that do not add real value. Over time, I believe we will see the market itself correct, changing from a gi-head to purpose-driven innovation. Safety, aging, accessibility and sustainability will be important benchmarks.
Companies that thrive in the next stage are not those that pursue trends. They will be the ones who quietly build trust, solve real pain points and create technologies that incorporate them into the background, but have a real impact in everyday life.
Thank you for your excellent interview, and readers who hope to learn more should visit OME.
