For most couples, this would have necessitated a further middle-of-the-night
conversation, but for my long-suffering spouse, the word “smart” was all he needed to hear to roll his eyes and huffily go back to sleep.
The noise-making contraption was the Mill Kitchen Bin — a full-sized, sleek-looking Wi-Fi-connected trash can packed with sensors and an industrial-grade food grinder.
It had hit a snag (a large pit) during its otherwise quiet nightly business of munching through its load of melon rinds, egg shells, coffee grinds, half-eaten peanut butter sandwiches, and chicken bones.
Over nine hours or so, it worked on shredding, shrinking, drying, and dehydrating the food remnants we’d thrown in the 27-inch-tall, 16-inch-wide bin during the day, turning them into “food grounds” by morning.