I kid you not, but just a week back I ended up buying rotten fruit. Mangosteen (an Indonesian fruit) has a tough outer skin that looks the same whether raw, ripe, or rotten. Needless to say, I bought a whole bunch of them, and reached home to find that each and every one of them was overripe. You need to be a seasoned fruit eater to be able to tell whether the fruit’s fit for eating or not. Or just get yourself the Kiki Fruit Investigator and it’ll do the job.

Kiki works in a way that senses what gases are being emanated from the fruit. There’s a way of telling by the aroma that a fruit is perfect for eating, and Kiki does just that. At the moment, you’ll have to select which fruit Kiki has to inspect, so that the sensors keep a check of the gases. Just pop the device into your fruit basket and switch it on. It’ll beep and light up to tell you that the fruit’s nearing its spoil date. Kiki is not just perfect for fruit-noobs like me, but also for fruits like melons and pineapples, that look the same on the outside even if the insides are beginning to get funky.

Designer: Raffaele Pontillo