After computers, IT wholesale, financing, LEDs, construction, military equipment, fitness and sports, German broadliner Wortmann enters the smart household appliance market. The billion-euro group wants to mix up the market for digital home appliances.
Its "eHome" division is to develop products and solutions for the networked home in the future. "Smart Home is a growth segment that we will now quickly establish and expand", says CEO Siegbert Wortmann. "Our goal is to drive forward the further development of our Group companies and our locations as well as new ideas. I am sure that with the new division eHome we will succeed outstandingly." Wortmann's eHome division, which is managed by Christoph Runge, the managing director of COS Computer, a subsidiary of Wortmann, focuses on the market for networked home appliances and will offer corresponding products under the well-known Terra brand, but will also sell other manufacturer brands as a distributor of smart home appliances.
Wortmann starts off with a smart cake appliance: the "Terramix". It is a robust kitchen machine in the retro design of the 50s. The highlight: The bowl is mounted above the engine and the gearbox, so that the bowl itself rotates instead of the attachment. "We chose this type of construction because it makes the motor more effective and more powerful and also makes it easier to fill in the ingredients from above", says Christoph Runge. But Terramix is much more than just a food processor. "Thanks to the IoT capability, Terramix can be connected to the Internet and hundreds of recipes from the corresponding Terra cloud can be downloaded to the device free of charge via an app. Terramix automatically recognises the stirring and whisking stages and automatically switches off when, for example, bread dough has reached its ideal consistency," says Runge, who, as a hobby chef and first tester, was also involved in the development of this "flawless, Made-in-Germany product". According to him, the Terramix can produce up to five kilograms of dough in one work step, something its famous competitor Thermomix cannot even dream of.
Even better : while some vendors are in competition with their resellers, Wortmann will exclude any direct sales: "we have an eco-partner system with tens of thousands of specialist dealers. Many have already expressed strong interest in expanding their sales partnership with Wortmann for the new eHome segment", says Runge.