Cooking with Intelligence: CUCKOO Debuts AI-Powered Induction Range

Mar 26, 2026

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CUCKOO has been synonymous with perfectly cooked rice in Korea for more than two decades. Founded in 1978 as Sung-kwang Electronics, the company spent its early years as an OEM supplier before launching the CUCKOO brand in 1998. CUCKOO’s pressure rice cooker has remained the No. 1 market share in South Korea since its launch. Today, CUCKOO is the top-selling rice cooker label in South Korea and a growing global appliance brand, with products ranging from water and air purifiers to vacuum cleaners and a broad line of kitchen appliances.

Now CUCKOO is turning its passion for precision cooking to a new flagship product: an AI-enabled induction range with a “smart listening” feature that automatically prevents dangerous, messy boil-overs. Developed in collaboration with Renesas and its Reality AI technology, the new range is designed not only for Korean homes but for busy, safety-conscious kitchens worldwide.

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From Rice-Cooker Icon to Smart Induction Pioneer

CUCKOO built its reputation by embracing the nuances other manufacturers overlooked: exact pressure profiles, carefully tuned heating curves and cooking algorithms adapted to different rice varieties and regional tastes. That attention to detail helped the company dominate its home market and expand to some 30 countries, from China, Malaysia and Singapore to the United States, growing every year.

Induction cooking was a natural extension of CUCKOO’s passion for precision. Since the mid-2000s, CUCKOO has leveraged its induction heating (IH) expertise to build cooktops and ranges that deliver fast, accurate heating by energizing cookware directly.

While gas cooktops use an open flame, which offers visual control but releases indoor pollutants, induction cooking relies on electromagnetism. This makes it faster, safer and more efficient – with a 90 percent energy transfer compared to 40 percent for gas ranges.

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“Electric cooktops are another option. They have a 70 percent efficiency rating but use radiant coils that heat the surface slowly,” said Yoon Ho Lee, Laboratory Chief Director of Engineering, Cuckoo. “Induction technology changes temperature instantly and cools quickly using specialized magnetic pots and pans.”

CUCKOO IH ranges add their own twist: hybrid zones that combine induction with a radiant “highlight” element, patented balance-control technology that heats the inner and outer parts of the pan evenly, and ultra-high-temperature control technology capable of holding maximum power for up to an hour for intense stir-frying or searing.

Even with these strengths, customers kept encountering a persistent pain point: boil-over.

The Boil-Over Problem and Why It Matters

Historically, induction burners have had one drawback. The same high heat that brings water to a boil in seconds can easily push soups, stews and starches over the edge of the pot, creating a kitchen mess and posing a safety hazard, especially for children and older adults. A 2025 study by the U.S. Institutes of Health surveyed more than 300 adults over the age of 65 at senior living centers in South Korea and found that kitchen-related burns and fires were the third-leading cause of in-home injury.

To date, cooking surfaces of all types have relied almost exclusively on simple timers or temperature threshold alerts. Until now, no technology could reliably distinguish between a vigorous but controlled simmer and a rolling boil that’s about to erupt.

CUCKOO set out to build a smarter range that could detect a boil-over in real time and intervene without forcing the cook to hover over the pot. That meant giving the appliance a form of hearing and judgment.

Detecting boil-over sounds simple, but the engineering challenge proved anything but. The acoustic signature of boiling changes based on cookware material, the size and shape of the vessel, fill levels and food type and interference from range hood fans and other ambient kitchen noises.

Reality AI and the RA6E1: TinyML at the Edge

To account for these conditions, CUCKOO’s engineers investigated a trainable AI solution that didn’t require a cloud-scale server to manage a countertop range. That led to a partnership with Renesas, which had been providing central computer chips and technical support for CUCKOO’s IH rice cookers since 2008.

Renesas Reality AI and the RA6E1 microcontroller (MCU) formed the foundation of the solution. The Reality AI software toolkit provides TinyML and edge-AI models from non-visual sensor data such as sound and vibration that can be deployed efficiently on Renesas MCUs.

Often working side-by-side with Renesas engineers and local partner Koshida Korea, CUCKOO’s team collected extensive sensor data from a variety of pots, recipes and kitchen environments. From there, they trained multiple specialized AI models to recognize boiling patterns for different cookware categories and operating conditions.

“Reality AI automatically identifies the optimal combination of sensors for a given machine learning application, and CUCKOO used it to build models for specific scenarios,” said Mr. Lee. “Renesas deployed the models on the RA6E1 MCU, which runs the edge-AI boil-over logic while consuming minimal power and maintaining low latency.”

Following numerous tests and evaluations across various environments and usage conditions, higher performance was achieved using a complementary AI module and the primary module. In addition to the RA6E1, a Renesas RX130 MCU manages the core induction heating control loop, using AI information to make fine power adjustments for safe operation. An iW1825 AC/DC controller provides efficient, reliable power for the electronics.

"Through iterative data collection, software optimization and tuning sessions – combined with CUCKOO’s own IH control expertise – the system achieves over 90 percent boil-over detection accuracy,” Mr. Lee said. This allows home cooks to step away from the range to check on children or prep ingredients without fearing a sudden eruption on the cooktop.

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A Glimpse of the AI-Enabled Kitchen to Come

Mass production of CUCKOO’s first AI-enabled induction range began in late 2025, with additional follow-on models planned soon after. The initial launch will focus on the Korean market, but the company intends to extend the technology across its range lineup and eventually into international models.

Looking ahead, CUCKOO and Renesas see boil-over detection as the first of several technology iterations. The same Reality AI framework can be adapted to recognize specific dishes and portion sizes based on sound, vibration and power profiles. It can also optimize heating profiles automatically for perfect noodles, stews or fried dishes, and it can be extended to other appliances.

“Within five years, CUCKOO envisions induction ranges that understand what is being cooked and automatically selects recipes and heat profiles, turning smart cooktops into culinary assistants,” Mr. Lee said.

From its origins as Korea’s leading rice cooker brand to its latest AI-driven induction ranges, CUCKOO continues to refine the everyday act of cooking. With Renesas as a technology partner, the company is bringing the precision of a cuckoo clock – and the intelligence of modern AI – to kitchens around the world.