Chef@Home Oven
An exiting future technology,…
28/10/2022 13:24
I have been using the Haier smart oven for several weeks, and cooked a variety of dishes from a simple fishfinger layout to a crackling roast, and I must say as an oven it performs well. The real question however, is to do with the cost vs performance vs features. The keen eyed reader may have noticed it has a large touchscreen flat panel display where the glass is usually, this provides the interface for the oven.
As interfaces go, it works ok, allowing me to set a wide range of cooking programs and a live camera feed from inside the oven, however this is also where the biggest issues with this oven come from. I have this expression that I stand by: "the best hardware in the world is useless if the software is poorly designed, but the best software in the world is still useable even if the hardware is bad"
To start cooking with most ovens on the market, you simply set the mode and temperature in under 30 seconds. With this oven, you first have to wait over minute just for it to power on and boot up which brings me to the main features of this oven.
UNDERPOWRED COMPUTE HARDWARE
For a device in the four digit price point, I should not be using an interface running on hardware a smartphone from 8 years ago would use, it just makes the system slow and because its slow, double taps when nothing happens makes for buggy or unintended behaviours. Haier, this hardware would have been ok, if your had not made the interface so graphically heavy.
INTERFACE:
first things first, I would like to see a "simple / normal" interface option switch, this would allow for simple buttons in a line with modes and temperature, and a live wide view of the oven so it can pretend to be a "normal" oven when you don't want to faff with the interface.
Additionally, I would like to see integrations in the oven like Alexa, Home assistant and youtube, because, THIS IS A SMART TOUCHSCREEN OVEN, and right now i fail to see what the touchscreen provides that other ovens do with their small wide top mounted displays.
WIRELESS PROBE:
Absolutely love this feature, makes cooking to temperature instead of to time possible, which is amazing, I don't need to open the door to probe the food!.
DOOR DESIGN:
As you can see in my photos, I have attached a suction cup to the door, this is because unless the oven is very low, there is no way to grip and pull it open as the tiny ledge coupled with the hydraulic mechanism makes it very stiff.
FINGERPRINTS:
Why doesn't this have an oleophobic coating
JaredReabow
Abingdon , Spojené království
Age: 29
Gender: Female