This smart oven will, depending on what a barcode tells it, steam, bake, broil or convection-cook dishes while its owners do other stuff. The Tovala Smart Oven just arrived on Kickstarter and it's already kickstarted, but there's still about a month left to get behind it early.
It's about the size of a microwave, but it does so much more than nuke boxes and is even more accomplished than a full-size convection oven.
The multi-functional smart oven can cook its namesake prepared meals without having to have its users play sous chef. It can change cooking temperatures and methods on the fly to deliver home-cooked style meals with the same effort as tossing something frozen into a microwave and allowing the radiation to bring it to life.
"Our delicious Tovala meals are curated by master chefs, made from scratch, and delivered fresh to your doorstep, ready to cook," says Tovala. "All you do is scan your meal's barcode, put it in your Tovala, and press start. In 10 to 30 minutes your meal comes out freshly cooked and ready to eat."
The Tovala smart oven isn't limited to preparing Tovala branded meals. Users can also freestyle with the smart oven and prep their own dishes for a trip into the Tovala experience.
Users can experiment with Tovala and "go beyond traditional cooking methods by employing both wet and dry heat for maximum effectiveness," says the company. "That means chicken that's juicy on the inside and crispy on the outside; vegetables that are firm yet fully cooked (and even lightly charred); and preparation times that are incredibly short."
And the Tovala isn't just a smart oven. It's also a connected oven. So Tovala owners can use their smartphones to moderate the cooking process.
The company was only asking for $100,000 to fund the smart oven, but people just keep chipping in. With 28 days left, the Kickstarter campaign was already well over $125,000 in pledges.
Those who backed the campaign early enough secured the smart oven for $200, which is about $120 off of what the company projects the Tovala will retail. At the time of writing, there are still 100 or so left at that price.
The company hopes to start shipping the first Tovalas to backers in December of this year.
