Smart ovens are a combination of your conventional ovens but are combined with the latest technology.
A smart oven is basically an electric cooking range equipped with modern connectivity features like Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Because of these features you can easily monitor and control your smart oven remotely with devices like smartphones, Google Home or Amazon’s Echo.
You can easily use your smart ovens through their relevant supported apps using which you can send commands even when you’re away from home.
As far as cooking goes, smart ovens cook just like regular ovens. Therefore, you can expect the same baked or broiled taste that you can expect from a conventional high quality oven.
Also Read: Toaster Ovens vs Conventional Ovens
What is a Smart Oven & Do I Need One?
As mentioned earlier, Smart Ovens are a technological step up for your regular Electric Ovens.
These are basically Internet of Things (IoT) devices that are equipped with plenty of sensors and actuators that allow you to monitor and operate remotely using WiFi or the Internet.
A Smart Oven performs a lot of functions and helps you in cooking efficiently, as we will read below. But whether you need one or not depends entirely upon your budget and cooking needs.
If you live with a large family with plenty of housework then you should definitely get one. Not only does it have features like cooking presets, it is also safer.
For instance, it can be a lifesaver particularly when you get busy in your housework and forget stuff easily. Your smart oven can turn off automatically at the right time in case you forget about it.
However, if you plan to occasionally use your oven or only use it for relatively easy cooking like toasting bread, then a Smart Oven could be an overkill.
Also Read: Best Breville Toaster Ovens
What Can a Smart Oven Do?
A smart oven works like your virtual kitchen assistant & with its advanced features you can easily use it with your phone.
You can adjust the cooking temperature & time of your smart oven from the its installed app via your smart phone or tablet.
Moreover, your smart oven comes with these amazing built-in features:
1. Connectivity
The smart ovens are compatible with other smart devices in your home. To put it simply, if you’re using Google’s Home, Amazon’s Alexa or any other smart home device you can control your smart oven with your voice.
In addition, you can also give cooking instructions using these apps or preheat your oven before reaching your kitchen.
2. Built-in Touch Screen Display
All smart ovens come with a touch screen display using which you can give instructions. You can even watch recipes on your smart oven’s screen and prepare your meal accordingly.
3. Multiple Cooking Modes
Another amazing feature of smart ovens is their multiple cooking features. They come with a set of preinstalled cooking features using which you can easily set oven cycle settings. You can easily set or expand the baking, broiling, warming timings using your smart oven app from anywhere you are.
Also Read: Best Cuisinart Toaster Ovens
4. Dual Fuel Option
Many models of smart ovens comes with dual fuel option using which you can choose the fuel you want to use. Like you can consume gas for the cooking range and electricity for the oven.
5. Connectivity With Cooking Apps
Many smart ovens are compatible with cooking apps, which means you can directly give instructions to your oven via the app. Moreover, you can directly instruct and control the cooking timings, temperature & mode through these apps.
6. Cooking Notifications
All smart ovens send cooking notifications when the food is ready or about to finish cooking. Smart ovens comes with built-in sensors that can detect when the food is ready or will be ready & notify you accordingly.
7. Preset Recipe Collection
Some smart ovens even have a collection of recipes from which you can choose. This feature comes in handy whenever you’re out of options i.e. what to cook?
8. Voice Control
A decade back it was a myth; talking to your kitchen appliances. Who would have thought that you can ask your oven to cook right? But now with the innovation in technology you can actually control your smart oven with your voice.
9. Self Cleaning
This is probably the best feature that a smart oven can offer. Smart ovens these days come with a grime resistant coatings which helps in keeping the inside of the oven clean.
Many smart ovens also have a self cleaning option using which you can clean your oven in no time.
Also Read: What is Oven Self Clean Feature
10. Meat Sensing Probe
No more confusion between medium rare and rare cooked meat. Now with smart ovens you can cook meat to perfection without worrying about overcooking or undercooking it.
Some Smart ovens have built-in sensors that turn the burner off whenever the meat is ready.
11. Saves Time
A smart oven is a time saver, you can always preheat your oven on your way home or can start the cooking timer. So, by the time you reach home your meal is ready for eating.
Also Read: Best Digital Toaster Ovens
12. Look at What You Cook
Now with smart ovens you can actually monitor what you’re cooking. Most of the smart ovens available in the market comes with a built-in camera that enables you to directly monitor your cooking at every single step.
This feature is very useful specifically when you’re baking. Because during baking, if you open your oven unnecessarily you can ruin your dish.
13. Fuel Efficient:
With smart ovens, you can even save on your bills.
Due to its smart cooking features it can save electricity and gas by turning off the oven and burner when not in use.
Should You Buy a Smart Oven?
You must be wondering that even if it comes with all the above-mentioned features why should you buy one and whether it is truly worth all that money?
In all honesty, all the smart oven features are a luxury and not a necessity. Sure, they are safer thanks to the myriad of control and monitoring technologies, but if you are careful and if you have been cooking on regular ovens just fine, then you can certainly do without smart ovens.
Plus, smart ovens do have a learning curve involved. Understanding its remote control technology as well as the app will require you to be a bit of tech-savvy.
Finally, smart ovens are fairly more expensive than their regular counterparts. Therefore, you will have to take its cost-benefit analysis into consideration.
Differentiating the Smart Cooking Appliances
There are plenty of smart cooking appliances that are very similar to each other. Some also combine other features. Therefore, the following should shed some light on them.
1. Smart Oven
Source: Hoover VisionAs highlighted in this article, Smart Ovens are remote / voice controlled devices that connect to WiFi or the Internet providing you with myriad of automated features.
2. Smart Toaster Ovens
These are miniature smart ovens that fit on top of your kitchen counterpart. They are excellent for small meals and for reheating or defrosting purposes.
Also Read: What is a Toaster Oven?
3. Smart Stoves
Smart stoves, as the name suggests, are cooktop devices that come equipped with sensors, induction cooking technology, safety locks etc.
Unfortunately, non of the ‘Smart Stoves’ actually have WiFi or Internet connectivity at the moment.
Final Words
Undoubtedly, with all these smart appliances our lives are getting much easier.
Therefore, if you can afford you should definitely buy a smart oven and bring that latest innovation in your kitchen.
On the flip side, you have to take into consideration there cost-benefit analysis. Since these devices are more expensive. You have to ask yourself: is investing in these devices truly necessary?
One way to answer this question is how often do you use your oven for cooking? If it is very often, then a smart oven makes sense. If you rarely use an oven, then investing in a smart oven may prove unnecessary.