Tovala Smart Oven Review

The third-generation Tovala Smart Oven ($249) picks up where its predecessor left off, adding air frying and the ability to read supermarket item barcodes. These additional features allow you to cook more foods in more ways with the ease of automatic oven programming. Unlike the previous model, it doesn't support steam cooking, which you can now only get with the Smart Oven Pro ($299), and it is limited in size. If you're willing to give up barcode scanning for more cooking space, you can step up to a significantly more expensive option like the Anova Precision Oven ($599). For the price and the cook-and-scan simplicity, however, the Tovala is a fantastic and feature-filled countertop appliance that earns our Editors' Choice for budget-friendly smart ovens.

The Tovala Smart Oven costs $249 if you buy it outright, but as of this writing, you can get one for $99 if you sign up for a select number of Tovala meal deliveries (this is optional, though). If you opt for meal deliveries, you simply scan the QR code that comes with the prepared meal and the oven automatically does the rest. This new model also recognizes the barcodes of hundreds of grocery items, such as frozen chicken wings or pizza, and will automatically cook them accordingly.

The Smart Oven and Smart Oven Pro are practically identical, though different finishes set them apart (metallic gray and black, respectively). The Smart Oven measures 11.8 by 18.5 by 12.3 inches (HWD), about the size of a large toaster oven or a small microwave. The door has a large, clear window and flips down to reveal the 8-by-12.8-by-11-inch, 0.65-cubic-foot interior cavity. It's slightly smaller than the 1-cubic-foot June Oven ($899) and the 1.2-cubic-foot Anova Precision Oven. The Tovala may be smaller, but it's also less than half the cost of these models.

The oven’s control panel sits to the right of the door and is identical in layout to the previous model. It consists of three circular button rings: the top ring is for selecting cooking modes, the center ring is for setting the temperature, and the bottom ring is for dialing in the cooking time. A small, two-button cluster sits below the rings and lets you start or stop cooking. The controls are all easy to use, with LED displays in the middle of each circle showing the selected cook mode, temperature, and time as you set them. The chunky black module sitting above the rings is the built-in QR and barcode scanner.

There are three positions for the cooking racks inside, on which you can place the included baking sheet or air frying basket. Two heating elements cross the bottom of the cavity, and a third crosses the top. A metal crumb tray takes up the entirety of the oven cavity floor and can be removed for cleaning. A second, plastic tray slides into the bottom of the oven below the door. On the Smart Oven Pro, this is the drain tray for the steamer feature, but the standard Smart Oven doesn’t steam so it's a superfluous extra.

Apart from the cooking racks, the baking sheet, the air frying basket, and the crumb tray, the Smart Oven comes with an oven mitt.

The Tovala Smart Oven has a temperature range of 225 to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. It has five primary cooking modes: Air Fry, Bake, Broil (Low), Broil (High), and Convection Bake.

The Tovala app (available for Android and iOS) lets you control the Smart Oven with your phone, though it’s primarily for managing Tovala meal plan orders, browsing recipes, and cooking instructions. You need to download the app, create an account, and pair your phone with the oven via Wi-Fi before you can do any cooking or scanning.

Once paired, you can use the oven's built-in scanner or your phone’s camera to scan the QR code of any Tovala meal kit. That meal’s list of instructions load on your phone and the oven is automatically set to cook it. You can also scan the barcodes of frozen and refrigerated groceries to program the oven to cook them with the press of a button. Tovala says it can identify over a thousand different grocery items from brands like DiGiorno, Eggo, Ore-Ida, Totino’s, and Trader Joe’s.

Manually cooking items via the app is awkward. The app is designed to identify and preset the oven based on scanned foods. If you want to set the cooking type, temperature, and time yourself, you need to create or edit a custom recipe each time. It gets tedious quickly. For some items, you're much better off sidestepping the app and using the physical buttons on the oven.

The first Tovala meal kit I tried was the Chesapeake Bay roasted salmon with potato wedges and lemon aioli. Preparing it was incredibly easy. I separated the nested foil trays and removed the plastic from the tray with potatoes in it. I then put the salmon filet in the other tray and sprinkled the included seasoning cup on it, then put both trays in the oven, scanned the QR code, and the Smart Oven did the rest. When it was done, I drizzled the lemon aioli packet on the potatoes.

The salmon was cooked very well, tender and moist but slightly firm. The potatoes didn’t come out quite as good. The kit misdirected the oven to bake rather than air fry, and the potatoes didn’t have any oil on them. They had a slightly firmer-than-steamed consistency and a few wedges were a touch undercooked. The lemon aioli was creamy, but a bit one-note and overly sharp. The Chesapeake Bay seasoning might as well have been any kind of nondescript powder. I didn’t pick up any flavor from the mix besides some mild paprika, and there wasn’t even a hint of celery salt needed to really bring out the taste of the salmon.

I also made panko-breaded chicken with macaroni and cheese. The kit consists of a chicken breast in a vacuum-sealed plastic bag like the salmon, two foil trays (one with refrigerated macaroni and cheese), a packet of mayonnaise, a packet of panko bread crumbs, and a packet of barbecue sauce. I was directed to spread the mayo on the chicken, then sprinkle the panko on top. I put the chicken in the empty foil tray, put both trays in the oven, and scanned the barcode. The oven took 22 minutes and 30 seconds to cook both.

The panko crust on the chicken was only on the top rather than coated all over, based on the directions, and since it goes in a foil tray instead of the oven’s air fryer basket, it doesn’t get air fried and is instead simply baked. Despite this, the chicken breast was moist and juicy while still cooked all the way through, and the panko was crusty. The macaroni and cheese was also tasty, though not particularly better than what you would expect from a standard frozen macaroni and cheese entree.

The list of groceries the oven can recognize is far from complete, but there are enough big brands that you’ll be able to automatically set cook temperatures and times for many items like frozen waffles and pizzas. I cooked some Eggo Thick & Fluffy French toast slices, Totino’s Pizza Rolls, and an Amy’s spinach pizza by scanning the barcodes with the oven.

The French toast came out about as good as frozen French toast can be. Eggo won’t come close to any freshly made baked good, but the toast was crispy on the outside and soft on the inside without any burning. The pizza rolls were also well cooked, with better crunchiness on the wrappers than they would get in the microwave. Both dishes took between 11 and 16 minutes in the oven; a conventional toaster might get Eggo items finished more quickly, but probably not as evenly.

The pizza came out nearly perfectly. The crust was crispy without being burned, though the very edges got very dark brown. It cooked more consistently than when I make frozen pizza manually in my oven. The automatic cooking really does seem to be accurate again and again. We must point out that the Tovala Smart Oven can cook frozen pizzas up to 10 inches; it cannot accommodate the common 12-inch frozen pizza found in your local supermarket. If you want a smart oven that can handle a full-size pizza, you need to look to the Anova Precision Oven or the June Oven.

Setting the oven based on the general food you want to cook is fairly easy through the app. I wanted to make some chicken thighs using the air fryer function, so I searched for chicken thighs and found a preset that cooked with the air fryer for 35 minutes at 400 degrees. I put the chicken in the air fryer basket along with some broccoli tossed in a bit of oil, put the basket in the oven, and cooked it.

The chicken came out moist, with a bit of crispiness on the outside. The broccoli was fairly tender and perhaps a bit overdone, but I liked it. Obviously, you might want to cook vegetables separately and not use the air fryer feature.

Speaking of cooking vegetables and personal tastes, that brings us to the big weakness the Smart Oven has over the Smart Oven Pro. It has no steaming function, so you’re limited to using dry heat no matter what you want to cook. I dry roast nearly everything in my oven, and personally think steaming is a pretty miserable way to prepare food outside of a few specific cases (like dumplings). Still, if steaming is an option you think you’ll miss, you might want to pay the extra $50 for the Smart Oven Pro. While we haven’t tested that model, the previous Tovala Smart Oven’s steam feature worked well.

The Tovala Smart Oven certainly goes beyond the typical countertop toaster oven or air fryer. It’s a flexible and surprisingly smart combination of both that can cook meats, vegetables, frozen foods, and anything else that requires dry, steady heat. The convenience of scanning and cooking Tovala’s own meal kits is impressive, even if the meals themselves aren't all winners. However, the barcode scanner on the oven lets you automatically cook many items you can pick up at the grocery store, and the physical controls are simple and easy to use.

It's small compared with the Anova Precision Oven and the June Oven, but at $249, it costs less than half as much as either of those models. And while it doesn't have the largest cooking cavity, it has enough space for many dishes besides full-size frozen pizzas and whole chickens, making it suitable for single users and couples. For the features and the price, the Tovala Smart Oven is an ideal multipurpose countertop oven for anyone with limited kitchen space, earning it our Editors’ Choice award.

The Tovala Smart Oven lets you bake, broil, and air fry almost anything, and can automatically set cooking modes with freezer case favorites.

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