Steamy Hot or Warm – You Decide

It’s the ultimate invention for coffee drinkers who don’t like their drink to be too hot or too cold – a temperature-controlled mug. After six years of research and development, Clay Alexander is launching an electric mug sold by his Thousand Oaks startup, Ember Technology. “Ember is the final piece of the puzzle of the supply chain to your mouth,” said Alexander, referring to the mug. The Ember Mug allows a drinker to control the temperature of the liquid inside. And according to Alexander, his invention takes only six minutes to cool down coffee to a temperature that won’t scald the tongue, much faster than foam coffee cups or travel mugs. Within the mug’s interior is a solid phase change material that turns to liquid at a given temperature that cools down the coffee or tea in the mug. A microprocessor-controlled heating system powered by a small battery keeps the drink at the desired temperature. All this technology is hidden away within the mug’s sleek contoured exterior. The user controls the temperature by rotating the bottom of the mug, a design Alexander credits to San Francisco product development firm Ammunition. “All the other designers were convinced we needed an up-down button,” he said. The patented technology was devised by Alexander and his team of engineers, many with backgrounds in cellphone design, and it represents just the first of many planned products from Ember. Alexander envisions the startup becoming the Nike of dishware as self-heating dinner plates and soup bowls are added to the product line. The Ember Mug will retail for $129 and begins shipping in April. During a two-week period, $250,000 worth of preorders came in, showing there is a demand for such a product and indicating the price people would be willing to pay, Alexander said. An entrepreneur who also founded a lighting design firm and an LED lighting manufacturer, Alexander said he worked for years on his drinking mug. There were 24 different designs for the lid before he settled on one that gives the feel of ceramic against the lips. Even with the company still in the startup stage, Alexander has plans for one of two exit strategies: selling to another company or going public, since those are the only ways the company can grow immense. If he goes the acquisition route, he wants to go with a company that aligns well with Ember. That was the case with Journee Lighting, a Westlake Village LED light developer founded by Alexander that was sold last month to EcoSense Lighting in Los Angeles for an undisclosed price. – Mark R. Madler