In the market for a new oven? Maybe even a smart oven? You’re not alone. These days we’re all spending more time at home, looking for ways to save time preparing meals without compromising taste. Enter the Suvie, Brava, and Tovala: three best-in-class smart ovens that remove much of the trial-and-error associated with traditional ovens.
Now that we’ve identified a few options… How do you know which smart oven is best?
The answer is not always what the brand would like you to believe. Each of these smart ovens has a different set of pros and cons that makes it better for certain home chefs over others.
We’ve done the heavy lifting for you by researching the details of each smart oven model and comparing them head to head. Read on to learn which smart oven is right for your kitchen!
TLDR; Which smart oven do we recommend?
Short on time? While there’s no one size fits all, here are our top recommendations:
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Choose Suvie if you are constantly on the move and desire convenience at the highest level. Suvie allows you to refrigerate and schedule your meal so that it is ready the minute you arrive home.
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If you want an easy way to cook at home, go with Tovala. It is not just affordable, but also simple enough for your children to use with its’ 850+ chef-programmed grocery products.
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Choose Brava if you prefer to have greater control over your recipes. With its strong light lamps, Brava can reduce cooking time from hours to minutes.
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Read on to learn how Suvie, Tovala, and Brava stack up on a granular level to determine which is the best fit for your kitchen.
Suvie vs Tovala vs Brava – Which is best for you?
Smart oven comparison: Suvie vs Brava vs Tovala | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| What’s it look like? | | ||
| Smart Oven Device | Dual-zone cooker for proteins and vegetables | Tovala smart oven | The Brava (in silver, black, or white) |
| Accessories included? | Vegetable pan Protein pan Roasting racks | Sheet tray Recipe cards Hot pad Measuring cup | Glass tray Metal tray |
| Additional products available? | Starch cooker for starches Rice, pasta & strainer pot set Egg tray Pan grabber Oven mit | Roasting pan with rack Tovala sheet tray (gen 2) Tovala meal trays (20 ct) Tovala oven rack (gen 1 or 2) | Muffin tin Square pan Loaf pan Egg tray Chef’s pan |
| Functionality | Refrigerate and cook | Cook only | Cook only |
| Dimensions | 11” width 16.5” depth 16” height | 18.5” width 12.32” depth 11.75” height | 14.1” width 16.7” depth 11.3” height |
| Weight | 55 lbs | 20.9 lbs | 55.9 lbs |
| Electricity | 1400 W | 1525 W | 1500 W |
| Mechanism for cooking | Water jackets | Heat and steam | Light |
| Return policy | 100 days | 100 days | 100 days |
| Underwriter’s Laboratories (UL) approved? | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Ability to schedule meal cooking? | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Multi-mode automated cooking? | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Meal delivery service? | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Mobile app? | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Scan-and-cook prep? | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Warranty | 1-year | 1-year | 1-year |
| Price | Original: $800 Discounted: $399 | Original: $299 Discounted: $49 with code IMPOSSIBLE250 ($250 total with commitment to 6 weeks of meal delivery) | $1,295 |
| Website |
Suvie kitchen Robot Review
With the Suvie Kitchen robot, your dinner is on autopilot. Suvie is a dual zone, cool-to-cook countertop appliance for proteins, vegetables, and some starches. The main idea behind this robot is to free up space on your counter for a Wi-Fi-enabled appliance that is part refrigerator and part cooker, all while using water for its cooking mechanism.
With Suvie, you can basically say goodbye to your microwave, oven, and toaster as it can perform a large variety of tasks:
- Cool-to-cook
- Frozen-to-cook
- Defrost
- Roast
- Broil
- Bake
- Sous vide
- Slow cook
- Steam
- Reheat
- Egg cooker
And, with the optional Suvie Starch Cooker add-on, you can even cook rice, pasta, and brew coffee (!!) at the same time.
Suvie recipes: Suvie smart meals
There are lots of brands on the market right now offering grocery delivery and meal kit creations straight to your door, what can Suvie bring to the table to put it above the competition?
Suvie provides meal plans and delivery to save you even more time when combining with their chef-designed meals, but they are not required to use Suvie. They simply allow you to mix and match your own combination of meals from their 60 plus options with the ability to refine your search based on your health and taste preferences, all with included calories and nutrition information.
After specifying your preferred delivery frequency and amount of meals needed to create a plan that works for you, Suvie delivers the Smart Meals in special packaging that instructs on how to prepare each item. The packaging contains a unique QR code that you scan, and the Suvie Smart Oven will begin cooking your food automatically.
Suvie Smart Meals are certified balanced meals, prepared with ingredients from some of the top grocery stores in the Northeast. Their chefs constantly seek out excellent producers and farmers to ensure customers get fresh and flavorful ingredients. There is no subscription or commitment required, giving you the ability to quit or pause at any time, but they do have minimum box sizes to make shipping cost-effective.
Suvie reviews: What are customers saying?
Source: Reddit
Review of Tovala
You should look at the Tovala if you are looking for an oven capable of doing almost everything Suvie can, but you don’t need the refrigeration feature. Tovala is also a meal service brand that delivers pre-prepared meals to “extremely busy people”. Using Tovala’s patented WiFi-connected smart oven, you don’t have to worry about the mess and prep when cooking – they aim to save you as much time as possible by reinventing the process of cooking at home.
You’re not limited to their meals, though! You can use the oven to do any cooking you’d normally do in your conventional oven in addition to steaming, 5 settings of toasting, reheating, and cooking. The Tovala app also includes a library of recipes and the ability to “Scan-to-Cook” hundreds of brand name grocery store products (including Amy’s, Pillsbury, Eggo, Totino’s, and so many more!).
Discounted at a total of $250, which includes 6 weeks of meal delivery, the Tovala Smart oven can provide you with the software and equipment necessary for this huge array of cooking abilities and the convenience they provide, and they’re constantly running sales.
Tovala recipes: Our experience with the Tovala smart oven
We had the opportunity to try out Tovala’s amazing features and got a fantastic dinner out of it.
Their meals are made by professional chefs in Chicago. You can choose how many you want, when you’d like them delivered, as well as update your weekly selections until Wednesday evening each week.
Although Tovala’s meals do not really cater to specific diets, nor are they very customizable, this is expected given that all components of each meal are baked together. Several specialized diet options exist, but minimal customization is available. Tovala uses natural ingredients – you’ll only find fresh, high-quality produce, proteins, and pantry staples, and seasonal fruits and vegetables (whenever possible).
The ingredients are raw, but they are pre-marinated and otherwise prepared, just make sure you arrange the right items in the proper trays. Then, pour a sauce or spice packet over them, scan the barcode, and let the oven handle the rest. With the Tovala app, you can get so many other things done while you wait for your meal – which are ready in under 20 minutes!
Tovala meals cost $12 each, which we think is a fair price, considering how easy it is to make, the high-quality ingredients included, and how fresh they are. The number of meals you order can range from three to sixteen, depending on how many you get. And, bonus, if you order six meals or more, the delivery fee of $5.99 will not apply.
Tovala reviews: What are customers saying?
Source: Trust Pilot
Review of Brava Smart Oven
The Brava is a smart oven that lets you take the guesswork out of cooking by using unparalleled power, precision, and control. It includes eight appliances in one – The Brava can sear, bake, toast, air fry and more, and cooks 2-4x faster than a regular oven from its database of thousands of recipes at the push of a button. Planning dinner after a long workday doesn’t have to be dreaded with this smart oven – there’s no more worrying about what goes with what and if you have the right ingredients.
The Brava’s sleek and minimalist design, digital display, and integrated cooking guides make meal prep a breeze. You don’t need to worry about this appliance taking up space on your countertop as it weighs only 11.3 pounds. It’s also effortless to use.
The Brava is unique in the sense that it can cook multiple food types simultaneously. It achieves this by using six UV lights that cycle on and off to cook each food to perfection. It can air fry, sear, dehydrate, toast, reheat and bake twice as fast, without preheating.
This does make the cleaning process rather tedious, however, especially with greasy foods. Brava says to use a damp cloth to clean while avoiding the lights and recommends a deep clean every three months.
Brava does not have a meal delivery service like the Suvie and Tovala, but because of the huge database of ingredients and meals that it can automatically whip up, this gives you the freedom to choose the meal that you want from the grocery story or delivery plan of your choosing, and doesn’t leave you limited to a list of meal offerings.
Brava even offers the ability to cook recipes found on different websites or databases! Have a certain garden item you’ve been dying to use? Prefer your plant-based meals more often than not? Brava makes this a bit more accessible and flexible.
How does Brava smart oven work?
Using the Brava oven is very straightforward. After downloading the app on your device, you can search for different recipes programmed by Brava chefs OR recipes not made by Brava, so feel free to search for recipes elsewhere.
Each coded recipe program synchronizes all of six Brava’s lamps together to imitate practically everything that your kitchen is capable of – all in one area and all at once. The technology is similar to how the sun heats up items of different colors – the darker colors absorb more light and therefore get hotter more quickly than light colors, which reflect the light. The same idea applies to cooking with light in the Brava, certain ingredients will reflect some light and require a little extra time to cook.
The Brava has different buttons for recipes on the touch screen, including ‘recently cooked’ if you’re a repeat-meal kind of chef, a favorite button for compiling your top recipes, or ‘food for your heart’ if you’re wanting to go a healthier route. We hope to see Brava organize their recipes by different food types in the future, as it can be overwhelming for any indecisive chefs. The search feature is practical in the meantime, though, to select food based on recipes, diet types, etc.
You can choose to cook your food for two or four diners and you’re offered a preheat and reheat function that keeps warm at 100 degrees, just in case you’re not home or hungry when you’d originally planned. Another great away-from-home feature is the app’s inclusion of all recipes, so you can find new recipes while away from the kitchen.
Next, cut, chop, and prepare your ingredients. Once you’re done, it is time to cook. Place everything on a tray and then insert it by lining it up with the oven’s brackets to align it perfectly. The Brava has a camera for viewing your food and you can select the ‘doneness level’ right on the touch screen. Also included is a temp sensor probe that connects directly to your meat to get the exact cook you are looking for. At this point, you just wait for your food to be ready!
Brava oven reviews: What are customers saying?
Source: Facebook
The Verdict: What smart oven should you choose?
It can be difficult to squeeze in the time to create a meal from scratch. Aside from cooking, the prep and cleaning chores also cut deeply into your precious time.
Smart ovens have revolutionized the way we cook. All of the models in our list are incredible choices, but each has their own strengths and weaknesses, which is why it is essential to ask yourself the right questions before deciding which smart oven will best meet your needs:
If you are super busy, always find it challenging to come up with a meal plan every week, or you just don’t fancy cooking at all, the Suvie or Tovala is ideal for you. Both have a meal delivery service and deliver the food pre-portioned and ready to be cooked in the easiest and most convenient way.
The difference between these two comes down to the price. No smart oven will be cheap – you’re paying for extreme convenience! The Tovala comes in at $299 and the Suvie costs $800, which is quite a difference. That said, the Suvie has a refrigerator that allows you to store and cook your food all in one place, so maybe it’s worth the additional cost, depending on your needs. Always keep in mind any discounts or promos they are running, as well, so make sure to check the price of each before making a final call.
If you love cooking and feel comfortable in the kitchen but need to save time, Brava is ideal. With its powerful air fryer and oven, Brava lets you enjoy healthier food cooked at lower temperatures, but this extra power come at a higher cost and naturally won’t fit everyone’s budget.
Is it worth it to buy a smart oven? Today, we are accustomed to getting everything we want at the click of a button. While it’s true that smart ovens cannot cook a gourmet meal all by themselves, they can still do a lot of the legwork and save you some serious time.
The technology behind these smart ovens is at the forefront of innovation and is constantly improving. Nothing is more exciting than having a meal ready in half the time with all the flavor and nutrition, especially when you have been busy all day.
So yes, in our humble opinion, smart ovens are worth investing in despite the high cost, especially if you are busy and unwilling to compromise on clean eating.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
What is a smart oven?
A smart oven is an oven that has been equipped with a computer chip and special software that enables remote control. Smart ovens come with various features, including the ability to preheat the oven before you get home, cook multiple dishes at once, and keep track of your cooking times and temperatures. Some even have built-in cameras and object recognition that allows the oven to identify the food inside it and set the temperature and cook time accordingly.
There are many benefits of owning a smart oven, the biggest being the ability to cook food faster and more evenly. Smart ovens have pre-programmed settings for various types of food so that you can cook your food to perfection with just the push of a button, and there are sensors that can tell when food is done cooking, so there’s no risk of your food being under or overcooked.
How much does the Brava smart oven cost?
The Brava is the most expensive smart oven we reviewed with the following pricing:
Brava Package |
Price |
What’s included |
| Starter set | $1,295 |
2 cook trays: glass, metal
TempSensor (thermometer) |
| Bake & Breakfast | $1,495 |
8 cook trays: 2 glass, 2 metal, muffin tin, square pan, loaf pan, egg tray
Tempsensor (thermometer) |
| Chef’s Choice | $1,695 |
9 cook trays: 2 glass, 2 metal, muffin tin, square pan, loaf pan, egg tray, chef’s pan
Tempsensor (thermometer) |
How much does a Suvie smart oven cost?
Suvie’s Smart Oven pricing is as follows:
Suvie Smart Oven Pricing |
Price |
What’s included |
| Suvie Kitchen Robot | Original: $800 Discounted: $399 or $33/month To be eligible for the $399 Suvie offer, you must order 2 Smart Meal boxes within 6 months of receiving your Suvie |
Dual-Zone cooker for proteins and vegetables Vegetable pan, protein pan, roasting racks |
| The Suvie System | Original: $1200 Discounted: $699 or $58/month Requires purchasing additional meal boxes for full discount |
What’s included in Suvie Kitchen Robot and: Starch cooker for starches Rice, Pasta & Strainer Pot set 4x 15% off coupons to use towards your first 4 Smart Meal orders |
| The Chef’s Package | Original: $1400 Discounted: $899 or $75/month Requires purchasing additional meal boxes for full discount |
What’s included in The Suvie System and: 2x Vegetable Pans 2x Protein Pans 2x Roasting Racks 2x Rice, Pasta & Strainer Pots 1x Egg Tray 1x Pan Grabber 1x Oven Mitt 8x 15% off coupons to use towards your first 8 Smart Meal orders |
How much is Tovala?
The Tovala Smart Oven is originally priced at $299 but often is available for $250 with a coupon code for $49 off with a commitment to 6 weeks of meal delivery. Tovala’s price point is thus substantially lower than Suvie Kitchen Robot’s for practically all of its functions.
What are Tovala’s scan-to-cook groceries?
Tovala’s biggest distinguishing feature has to be its scan-to-cook grocery products. Tovala has a database of over 850 groceries, including your favorites like Bagel Bites, Eggo, and Totino’s. Simply scan the barcode of your favorite grocery item to cook it properly.
The Tovala Smart Oven will automatically pull several chef-programmed cooking modes and temperatures from the cloud to flawlessly prepare your meal. So, there’s no need to be concerned about preheating, overcooking, or scorching your food.
How do you use Suvie's smart oven?
To cook with the Suvie, a water-tight metal jacket encloses the top two compartments for your protein and vegetables. You’ll then follow these steps to schedule your meal to be ready at the exact time you want:
- At the start of the day, put your food in the appropriate containers and fill the Suvie’s water reservoir.
- On the appliance’s touch screen, set the time that you want your food to be ready.
- The reservoir’s water transfers to cool the jacket, refrigerating the food. The Suvie’s refrigeration is made possible via a built-in compressor, which is similar to the technology used in full-size refrigerators.
- When Suvie is ready to prepare your dinner, the water in the jacket begins to heat up and multitask.
- The water cooks the protein and vegetables at the top of the compartments using sous vide and steam, respectively, before filling and cooking any items in the starch compartment.
- While the remainder of the dinner cooks, the sauce heats up.
- When your dinner is ready, you’ll receive an alert.
- When you’re ready to eat, Suvie’s powerful broiling elements will heat up to quickly roast the vegetables and give a final sear to meats for a browned finish before plating your meal.
- When your meal is finished cooking, the Suvie Smart Oven drains itself, making cleanup a breeze.
Suvie provides a useful app to go along with the robot that can be conveniently used to schedule or reschedule your meal. Suvie’s rapid cook mode allows you to go from fully frozen components to dinner on the table in just 25 minutes!
You can also use the Suvie app with your own ingredients, and the program will recommend cook times and temperatures for commonly used items. Simply enter your meals whenever you are ready, and the Suvie app takes care of the rest.
How do you cook with Tovala?
After purchasing the Tovala Oven Starter Kit that comes with the smart oven and everything you need to cook, you can select a meal plan and choose your delivery cadence – between 3 and 16 meals every week. You can choose your meal from a new menu every week – which is terrific.
Ingredients, preparation requirements, and instructions for cooking are outlined on a card that comes with each meal. The majority of the time, you will only need to open the meal package and add a sauce or spice! Your weekly meal prep process will no longer take hours!
When you’re ready to cook, you need simply to put your food into the Tovala smart oven, scan the QR code on your meal card using the smart oven’s scanner, and voila! You’ll have your meal ready in no time. The food is cooked to perfection using custom combinations of steaming, baking, and broiling, exactly as Tovala chefs intended. Tovala takes less than 20 minutes to cook all meals – it’s time for you to get your evenings back!
Tovala, like Suvie, offers a handy app. While it doesn’t allow you to schedule meals, the Tovala App is required to connect your Tovala Smart Oven to WiFi, quickly & easily order Tovala Meals, receive notifications when your food is done, and create cook cycles that use several cooking settings. You may also turn store-bought ingredients into entire meals using the app’s library of chef recipes. Simply select the recipe you want from the app, and the oven will adjust its settings to cook it for you. No more speculating!
Methodology
We conduct extensive research to evaluate the pricing, effectiveness, accessibility, overall quality, and user experience of each product we review. This also included examining and comparing them to several alternatives.
| Review Process | Key Metrics | Weighting |
|---|---|---|
| Purchase online | – ease to complete intake form – affordability – upfront commitment or subscription required? – money back guarantee or refund policy? | 1 |
| Shipping + unboxing | – shipping cost – time from order to treatment delivery – sustainable packaging | 1 |
| Testing + journal for 1-3 months | – ease of use – transition into habitual use – taste / smell / feel / pain | 1.5 |
| Results after 3 months of use | – efficacy / results – ease of forming a health habit – requires additional purchae? – responsive customer support – willingness to recommend to a friend | 1.5 |
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