Key facts
- Tovala's smart oven system aims to provide a convenient alternative to takeout and frozen meals.
- The oven automatically cooks pre-portioned meals by scanning QR codes, handling various cooking modes.
- Meal plans offer flexibility in quantity and delivery, with single-serving meals starting at $13.99.
- The reviewer found the oven convenient but noted that meat textures sometimes required additional cooking.
- A key feature is the oven's ability to recognize and cook compatible grocery store products via barcode scanning.
Tovala's smart oven system, designed to make home cooking as easy as ordering takeout, was tested over two weeks. The system pairs pre-portioned meal kits with a connected oven that automatically cooks the food after a QR code is scanned via a companion app. This approach aims to eliminate the friction of traditional cooking, such as chopping vegetables and measuring ingredients.
The oven itself, which costs $299 for the standard model and $349 for the Pro version with a steam function, can bake, broil, air fry, toast, and reheat. Tovala offers over 45 meal choices weekly, with flexible meal plans ranging from 4 to 16 meals per week, and allows users to skip or cancel deliveries. However, the meals are not inexpensive, with single-serving options starting at $13.99 and two-serving meals at around $8.99 per serving, plus a $10.99 shipping fee. Family-sized meals start at $35.96.
While the convenience is a significant draw, particularly on days when cooking is undesirable, the reviewer noted that the quality, especially the texture of meats, did not always match that of a home-cooked meal. Some dishes, like a pineapple shrimp stir-fry, were satisfying and flavorful, but others, such as steak, benefited from being finished in a separate pan, which somewhat defeats the hands-off nature of the system. A notable feature is the oven's ability to recognize compatible grocery store products by scanning barcodes, allowing it to be used beyond Tovala's own meal kits.