Best Smart Ovens: June Smart Oven (3rd Gen) vs Tovala Smart Oven

Introduction

Smart ovens have quietly become one of the more interesting additions to the modern kitchen. They work like a regular countertop toaster oven, but they add a layer of automation that genuinely changes how you cook: they monitor temperature and timing as your food cooks and adjust on the fly, they let you check progress remotely from an app, and they can respond to voice commands through assistants like Google Assistant, Alexa, or Siri.

Testing across a lineup of five models showed these appliances are not cheap. Prices ranged from roughly $300 at the bottom to about $1,100 at the top. Two models stood clearly above the rest, and this guide walks through both winners and who each one suits best.

What Makes a Smart Oven Smart

Beyond basic toasting and baking, a smart oven tracks your cooking as it progresses and makes adjustments automatically. A built-in temperature probe sits in the food, you program in the finish temperature you are after, and the oven knows exactly how hot the food is and steers accordingly.

Internal cameras let you watch your food while it cooks, and the companion app shows graphs of what is happening, so you can check in from across town. Some models go further: place packaged food, company meal kits, or certain fresh foods inside, and the oven recognizes what is there and starts cooking with a single touch.

Testers weighed a few factors that mattered regardless of brand. Clear, intuitive controls on both the oven and the app ranked high, along with the ability to make genuinely good toast. Easy-to-clean, smudge-free exteriors helped too. Finally, a smaller footprint mattered, because some of these ovens take up a serious amount of counter space.

Best Overall: June Smart Oven (3rd Generation)

The third generation of the June Smart Oven was a standout in testing. It covers every smart trick in the category and all the fundamentals: it roasts, bakes, toasts, air fries, dehydrates, and broils. Everything testers made in it came out really good, and because it handles air frying and dehydrating, it can replace several single-purpose appliances on your counter.

There is a catch: the premium package ran about $1,000, so you pay dearly for the versatility. Even so, testers were reluctant to give it back, and one tester bought one for herself at the end of testing, which is about as strong an endorsement as a product gets.

If you want one appliance that does nearly everything well and you have the budget and counter space for it, the June is the easy pick.

Best Value: Tovala Smart Oven

The Tovala Smart Oven earned Best Buy status by doing all the same smart tricks as the June, with recipes that came out well across the board. The one quibble is its compact footprint, which makes the interior a bit cramped. You can just squeeze in a butterflied chicken, and ribs top out at half a rack at a time.

For smaller households, that limitation is unlikely to matter much, especially at about $300, which is a fraction of what the June costs. If you want the core smart oven experience without the premium price, the Tovala is the smart choice.

Buying Advice

Match the oven to your household before anything else. If you cook for one or two and value a smaller footprint and a friendlier price, the Tovala covers the essentials without compromise where it counts. If you cook for a group, want maximum cooking modes, and see it replacing an air fryer and dehydrator, the June justifies its higher price.

Whichever you choose, plan for counter space, keep the exterior smudge-free with regular wiping, and take advantage of the app and voice controls, since that is where these ovens earn the “smart” in their name.

Conclusion

The June Smart Oven (3rd generation) is the best overall pick for cooks who want a do-everything smart oven, while the Tovala Smart Oven is the Best Buy for smaller households at around $300. Either way, you get an oven that may well be smarter than the rest of your kitchen.