from Hacker News

Testing the June Intelligent Oven

by mace on 10/5/18, 7:17 PM with 40 comments

• by imglorp on 10/6/18, 12:29 PM

  Can we talk about commodity kitchen hardware?

  A brand new microwave seems to have the same halfassed, user hostile firmware they shipped around 1999, oriented around a fixed segment display. I would like to see some simple additions that would make a world of difference.

  * Add some IR temp sensors, for what $5 in parts, that can heat to an approximate inside temp.

  * Update the firmware, for example, to stop beeping when you hit Stop. The commands could actually be far simpler than currently: you really just need "boil", "warm", "defrost" and "reheat" commands - let it figure out the energy needed.

• by losvedir on 10/6/18, 4:57 PM

  Wow, what good timing. My wife and I don't cook a whole lot so we don't want a full size oven, but were thinking about getting one of these smaller toaster-oven footprint appliances. We were looking at the June oven and, e.g., the crazy Brava Light oven (which seems cool, but I can't get over the woo-woo marketing materials).

  Cook's Illustrated is a really respectable magazine, so this recommendation carries some substantial weight for me.

• by glup on 10/6/18, 12:30 PM

  I think I would pay $100 for a toaster oven with a decent PID controller, controls that made sense (what does "200F" on dial 1 and "Toast" on dial 2 even mean?), and had a decent chance of working in 20 years. I've already got a pretty decent set of sensors + heavy duty, self-updating neural network between my shoulders, thanks.

• by jedanbik on 10/6/18, 1:39 PM

  I really like that this oven has a camera, as well as temperature probes, and that it’s all integrated into the oven’s experience through a app on the phone. Do they have any competitors doing this stuff, or are they alone in doing this right now? I am impressed - they’ve decomposed the idea of what an oven experience usually is (stationary waiting and checking) and shifted it to what it could be (check on it from a distance, data driven shutoff from measurements). Very compelling use of simple features. That’s exciting design!

  This enables “Put a turkey in the oven, and run to the store and pick up the frozen green beans you forgot to buy - you always know how the turkey is doing.”

• by tokyodude on 10/6/18, 6:07 PM

  I don't know how they compare to the June but there are many models of convection ovens in Japan that claim to figure out what you put in them. Many of them will optionally add steam and nearly all of them will also do microwaving as well.

  Here's a few from Panasonic

  https://panasonic.jp/range/

  and Sharp

  http://healsio.jp/

• by kposehn on 10/6/18, 2:45 PM

  I’ve had a Breville countertop convection oven for 9 years and it has been used daily multiple times since I got it. When I saw the June oven I was skeptical, but cooks illustrated giving it a positive review is actually quite an achievement. I may decide to get one now as my Breville is finally starting to give up.