This Smart Oven Can ID, Cook Food Sans User Input

Or, how to not burn down the house this Thanksgiving

November 9, 2016 9:00 am

Cash rich, time poor and cooking deficient?

We have an oven for you.

The June Intelligent Oven, now available for preorder, is a countertop roaster with smarts. And looks: its minimalist design includes a five-inch touchscreen and a single click-knob for controls, while an edge-to-edge glass door, overhead LEDs and internal camera help you track your food’s progress. You can see the design pedigree of the former Apple engineers at work here (aside: Ashton Kutcher is an investor).

Achieving a perfect cooking temp in about three minutes, June can hold any dish up to 11 x 16 inches (so think a small roast). The idea here is literally “set it and forget it” — the internal camera IDs your food. You insert a core temperature probe and the device recommends a time, temp and setting.

Then you go and do whatever; you can watch the food via video on the June app, or just wait for the device to automatically turn off.

There are some nice touches here as well: the top of the unit doubles as a kitchen scale. You can program your own cooking presets and app alerts. The app can help you create shopping lists based on any recipes you input.

That said: this is a somewhat limited product. June currently only recognizes about 25 foods. And the $1,500 price tag means you’ll probably need to make this your main cooking appliance. Best use case: cooking novices in small apartments.

Looks like we know what you’re getting your nephew in San Francisco for the holidays.

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