I’ll be reviewing the Tovala Smart Oven second-generation model. Before continuing any further, I want to save everyone a lot of time. The writing on the front panel gets rubbed off easily. For this one reason, I don’t recommend this smart toaster oven. I’m still going to continue the review for anyone still interested but the quality control from Tovala is clearly terrible.
This originally happened because a tiny bit of sauce spilled on the front. I cleaned it off with a wet paper towel, I even avoided using soap because I was afraid the text would rub off but it happened anyway. To make things worse, I tried rubbing off the text with my dry thumb by only applying a slight amount of pressure (not even a lot) and the text still gets smudged off. Clearly, the quality of this particular part of the product is terrible. If you’re still interested in this product, let’s continue on.
It’s fairly large measuring in at 18.5 x 12.32 x 11.75”. On top of that, for safety reasons due to heat build-up, Tovala recommends leaving 6” of clearance above and 3” on the sides and behind, that’s because some of the outside surfaces can get hot while in use. It’ll take a decent amount of space on your counter. The oven area is roughly 0.5 cubic feet. In my experience, you can fit enough food to feed two adults but that’s about it. There’s a removable tray that comes included. The cooking rack can be placed at 3 different heights. At the bottom is a crumb tray and underneath is a drip tray.
The exterior is stainless steel and plastic.
The regular price is $299 USD but it goes on sale regularly. Here in Canada, it was being sold directly through Amazon for $249 surprisingly but here’s the catch. This toaster oven is only meant to be sold in the US. Why do I say that? The app to use smart functions is only available for US residents. I was able to get it on Android by sideloading the app by finding it on the internet and it works fine. There’s another catch. Tovala has a meal prep delivery service where they deliver fresh ingredients with steps to make a meal but only in the US. I’ll be honest, I haven’t been able to try one of the meals but each meal is $11.99, can feed one person and testimonies are positive that the food tastes good. The card with meal kit instructions has a barcode the oven can scan to immediately set the correct heating setting, temperature, and time. This toaster oven can bake, broil, steam, toast, and reheat food.
Out of the box, to use any function of this device, it must be connected to WiFi for initial setup. After that this smart toaster oven can work as a “dummy” version if it loses connection to WiFi. When connected to WiFi it uses 2.4Ghz signal. During the initial WiFi setup, the app is rather easy to navigate and use but during setup, for some reason I see multiple toaster ovens. I replicated this a few times and each time the same behaviour happens and selecting the first toaster oven on the list of devices in the app doesn’t always work, I end up having to choose the second or third on in the list.
When connected to WiFi you can start scanning grocery items for instant heating options. For example, if you have chicken burgers and it happens to be in the Tovala database, simply scan the barcode and it’ll know what temperature and cook time to set, all you have to do is press start on the toaster oven. It’s an awesome, fast and lazy way to get food ready. As of this recording the database has over 750 items ready to scan. If for some reason something doesn’t exist in the Tovala database, simply scan the grocery item barcode in the app, put in the cooking settings and the toaster oven will know what preset settings to place in, it’s neat. You can even put settings like bake for 20 minutes and then immediately broil for 2 minutes. You can essentially combine heating styles one after the other.
The app will alert you when your item is finished but you can’t start the toaster from the app. This makes sense for safety reasons.
There are three circular button controls on the front:
-The top is choosing the heating style: bake, broil, steam, toast and reheat.
-The second is temperature setting: in increments of 25f for bake, five levels for toast and two levels for broil.
-The third section is duration.
There is a fourth section without a display, it’s simply to start and stop the heating process.
When pressing any button, there are individual LED displays showing what you’re choosing. This kind of becomes a disappointing workaround for the label smudging. The bake and broil LED symbols are confusing whereas the steam and toast symbols are self-explanatory.
-The max temperature the toaster oven can reach is 450f and cook for a maximum 99 minutes.
-The average preheat time to reach 350f averages 4 minutes and 30seconds.
Above the buttons at the top right is where water is poured for the steam function.
In my experience this toaster oven has done a great job of getting food ready. The only time it was a miss was for steaming hot dogs. I think the app preset setting for hot dog was perhaps too high in steam heat as the hot dog started warping a bit but it tasted fine. In fact this toaster oven has become a staple item in our kitchen and with a young family (for nuggets and fries) we use this more often than our regular oven.
Score:
6/10
Pros:
-Food turns out great
-Easy to use app
-Bake, broil, steam, toast and reheat
-Interior space
-App notification for finished meal
-Meal kit option
-Scan 750+ grocery items
-Manually add grocery barcodes
-Set custom combination heating method
-Can work as a “dummy” toaster oven after first setup
Cons:
-Label smudging
-Sometimes setup shows multiple Tovala units
-Pre-set app food heating method doesn’t contain recipes
