Known for kitchen appliances like sous vide cookers, espresso machines and more, Breville just debuted the Joule Oven Air Fryer Pro, which the brand says is its first smart connected product. While you can program the oven manually using integrated buttons and dials, it also pairs with the Joule oven app, allowing users to choose from over a hundred recipes that guide them through cooking dishes like bread, salmon, french fries and more. It’s also compatible with Amazon Alexa and Google Voice Assistant.
Notably, many of the app’s recipes were created by ChefSteps, which develops online cooking content and was the original manufacturer of the Joule Sous Vide. Breville recently acquired ChefSteps, and the brand says the Joule Oven Air Fryer Pro is its first launch since the acquisition.
Breville Joule Oven Air Fryer Pro
Breville’s new oven is a countertop appliance — we’ve previously covered the brand’s products in our guides to ice cream makers, stand mixers and more. The Joule Oven Air Fryer Pro comes equipped with 13 smart cooking functions including toast, dehydrate and slow cook. The oven also offers specific settings to make pizza, bagels and cookies. The Joule Oven Air Fryer Pro is also an air fryer — its air fry cooking function crisps ingredients, according to the brand, and it comes with a basket meant to be used while air frying or dehydrating food.
I recently saw the Joule Oven Air Fryer Pro in action during a virtual demonstration hosted by Grant Crilly, the co-founder of ChefSteps and Joule. He showed me how the oven’s Autopilot mode works, which is unique to the new appliance. In Autopilot mode, the app syncs with the oven and programs it to automatically move through cooking settings. For example, I watched Crilly make croissants using a recipe in the app. After the app walked him through the recipe and preparation process — with instructions and videos complimenting each step — he simply put the dough in the smart oven and pressed start. In Autopilot mode, the app told the oven how long to proof, bake and keep the croissants warm for and at what temperature. Crilly did not have to adjust the appliance’s settings in Autopilot mode — together, the oven and app did all the work for him.
The oven is designed with Breville’s Element IQ technology, which adjusts the power of the appliance’s six independent quartz heating elements to cook food more evenly and quickly, the brand says. It can fit a 9-by-13-inch baking pan or a 12-cup muffin tin, according to the brand. Breville says the oven can also act as a 9-slice toaster, and you can fit a 13-inch pizza (or pie) and a 14-pound turkey as well.
Beyond recipes developed by the Breville Test Kitchen and ChefSteps, the app will soon feature options from chefs and food media outlets. You'll be able to choose from recipes by Williams Sonoma, Serious Eats, New York Times Cooking and America’s Test Kitchen, as well as chefs like Claudette Zepeda and Eric Adjepong, both of whom were featured on Bravo’s “Top Chef.” And to help you monitor dishes in the oven, the app can send you notifications or the oven can make voice assistant announcements. During the virtual demonstration, I saw Crilly get a notification on his phone to alert him that the croissants were done baking. Using the voice assistant feature, he was able to set the oven to “keep warm” and turn it off as he walked over to remove the croissants.
Breville’s Joule Oven Air Fryer Pro is available in Black Stainless Steel and Brushed Stainless Steel. In addition to the air fry/dehydrate basket, the oven comes with accessories like a 13-inch non-stick pizza pan and two wire racks, as well as a 9-by-13-inch broiling rack and enamel roasting pan.
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Other smart ovens to consider
If you’re looking to browse additional smart ovens, we included a variety of options in our guide to the appliance. Below are a few smart ovens to consider, all of which are under $300 and feature air fry capabilities.
GoWISE USA Deluxe Electric Air Fryer Oven
This smart oven features three rack levels and a built-in rotisserie. It offers 15 preset cooking functions and you can also manually program the temperature and time settings. The GoWise oven comes with 10 accessories, including a shallow mesh basket you can use to air fry ingredients.
Ninja Foodi 8-in-1 Countertop Convection Oven
The Ninja Foodi 8-in-1 Countertop Convection Oven comes with eight cooking functions, from air fry and air broil to keep warm and bake. It comes with a 13-by-13-inch sheet pan and an air fry basket and features a removable crumb tray. When you’re not using the oven, the brand says you can flip it to stand vertically, taking up less space compared to when it’s horizontal.
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