Breville smart ovens are some of my favorite appliances. We love (toaster) ovens here at Kitchen Authority. Their flexibility is unmatched and they are great value for your money.
So, we were delighted when we got the chance to review the full range of Breville Smart Ovens.
The Breville series of Smart Ovens are top of the line kitchen appliances.
Don’t expect bargain prices as you pay for what you get when it comes to Smart Ovens.
And with the Breville Smart Ovens you get a lot!
There’s a toaster oven for everyone in the Breville Smart Oven series and they all have a lot more flexibility than just a plain old toaster oven.
These are truly awesome Smart Ovens.
A Brief Introduction To Breville Smart Ovens
A toaster oven is an oven which also doubles as a toaster.
It certain cases other features are added in order to make the shelf space you give your toaster oven an even better investment.
The trouble with many toaster ovens is that they’re not that great when it comes to putting them into use. The cheapest models are rife with faults.
One of our least favorite flaws in toaster ovens of low quality is a door that slips easily and without a lot of care will eventually burn your hands.
But there are plenty of other less severe problems too. Poor toasting – yes, toaster ovens that burn one bit and leave another undercooked are far too common for our liking.
Controls are often so badly designed that you need an hour with a manual to get to grips with anything.
We also find that the grates often fit poorly and are too easy to pull out when you try to retrieve your food.
The Breville Smart Ovens are a response to these flaws.
They’re designed to deliver a high-quality user experience that leaves everyone feeling that a toaster oven is a huge asset to their kitchens.
The Breville Smart Oven Pro isn’t a toaster oven, it’s an oven to replace your full size oven.
Gadget Review
General Features Of Breville Smart Ovens
We’ll look at the differences between the items in the range in a little bit but first let’s look at the common features that you’ll find throughout the Breville Smart Oven portfolio:
- Designed with the user in mind. We don’t want to spend hours with a manual working out how to use our kitchen equipment. Call us old fashioned but we want to cook when we’re in the kitchen and when we want to read things; we prefer novels and cookbooks to instruction manuals. This range is incredibly intuitive and that makes using your Smart Oven so easy!
- The magnetic rack. We love this feature it means you can always bring out the rack and access the food with no fear of it ending up on the floor (or worse on your feet) and it slides in and out without any hiccups at all.
- The oven light. If you have a convection oven this is pretty much a standard feature but it’s something that many toaster oven manufacturers have omitted to save a couple of bucks – however, it’s an essential if you want to check the progress of your dishes.
- Controlled cooking. It’s so easy to burn toast if you’re not keeping an eye on it in most toaster ovens but your Breville Smart Oven lets you set the number of slices and the level of toasting you want and when it gets to that point; it cuts the heat. That means you always get great toast even if your attention wanders as it’s wont to do if you have a family running around your kitchen.
- Timed cooking. If you want to bake something in your toaster oven, the smart oven’s not quite up to working out how to measure a rise in a cake but you can configure it to cook for a set time and then switch off. There’s a default timer of 30 minutes (after the oven has reached heat) but you can adjust this to any time you like.
- The small footprint. Breville Smart Ovens are not tiny but they’re pretty small when you consider what they do and how much food you can fit inside them. Our feeling is that you’re going to appreciate the flexibility they add to your cooking much more than you’re going to resent its footprint on the shelf.
- Plate warming. The top of the oven gets warm and that means you shouldn’t leave anything on top of it. However, this isn’t a disadvantage – the best thing to do is to place your plates on top of the oven while it cooks and then you’ve got a plate warmer at no extra cost.
Our one overall grumble with the Breville Smart Ovens range is this: the smart features are a bit limited.
You can’t connect this range to your phone, yet and that means really “smart” just refers to the pre-set functions and features included in an individual model.
We expect a little more in this era of smart homes and smart kitchens and think Breville ought to be addressing this when they refresh their Smart Ovens range in a year or two.
Breville Smart Oven Models
There are 7 different models in Breville’s Smart Oven series and each of them has some unique features.
Breville Mini Smart Oven
It’s the cheapest and smallest entry level Smart Oven in the Breville range. You’ve got 8 smart cooking functions and you can bake, toast, broil, roast, reheat as well as cook bagels, pizza and cookies.
It has a fairly low level of power drain too and that means you’re going to keep electricity bills to a minimum.
The main issue here is the size. It’s the ideal purchase for an individual or a couple but it’s way too small for most family usage.
Breville Compact Smart Oven
This is a bigger version of the entry-level unit. It has the same 8 cooking functions and no additional functionality.
However, if you’ve got a family to cater for, you’re going to appreciate the extra space. We like the speed at which this model warms up too – the 1800W preheat function makes cooking super fast.
Breville Smart Oven Compact Convection
The Breville Smart Oven Compact Convection with Element IQ saves kitchen space for the home cook who wants a convection countertop oven that roasts perfect meats, bakes beautiful cakes, delicious cookies and toasts consistently.
Breville Smart Oven
This is the original mode that the Breville Smart Oven series gets it’s name. It’s slightly llarger than the compact version and definitely our first pick for a large family.
It introduces a convection cooking setting which can reduce cooking time by nearly 30% and there’s an additional preset warming function included.
We found that the additional speed gained in the cooking process made this a much better buy than the two smaller models. However, it does have a larger footprint and may not be suited for the smallest kitchens.
Breville Smart Oven Pro
This is the moment that your Breville Smart Oven is supposed to be fit for a professional kitchen.
In reality, it’s not a massive difference from the Breville Smart Oven.
The slow cooking function is very useful, and we liked it a lot but we’re not sure that it justifies the price increase over their original Breville Smart Oven.
We had no problem cooking a large pizza in this oven and it’s simple to roast a whole chicken in there too. If you’re going to fork out for this model, we’d strongly recommend that you put in a bit more and buy one of the other two higher-end models, though as they have even more functionality.
Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer
This is our favorite Smart Oven from Breville. It’s not cheap by any means but we love the fact that they’ve included an air fryer function in the box.
Air fryers substantially reduce the fat you consume when preparing “fried” food (they don’t actually fry, they manipulate a convection air current to make the food seem fried).
That means if you value your family’s health, this is the oven you want to buy for your kitchen.
We also like the downloadable recipe book that they put together to help you get the most from this model.
Breville Smart Oven Air
While our favorite oven by maybe the Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer, the one we decided to buy for home use was the Breville Smart Oven Air.
This adds dehydrating as an additional function to the oven.
Sure, it’s not cheap but it’s not much more money than the model one down and we like to pack as much functionality into a device as possible. That way we save on buying even more products and from having to find the space to store them with.
Breville Smart Ovens Review Overview
These ovens are for people looking to make a serious investment into their kitchen’s capabilities. We think a toaster oven is invaluable and would encourage everyone to buy an air fryer too for the health benefits.
The fact that you can get both in a single package leads us to pick the Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer as our favorite, but you really can’t go wrong with any model in this series. They are all excellent and will all make great food for your family.
Frequently Asked Questions On Breville Smart Ovens
What Is A Smart Oven?
There are two key features that make a smart oven, well, “smart”. The first and in our opinion the most important is the notion of “smart” cooking. With the Breville Smart Oven this is delivered with their Element IQ® technology. Element IQ® transfers heat intelligently across 5 quartz elements for precise and stable heating where and when you want it. This delivers perfect results, every time. Breville Smart Ovens with Element IQ have preheat superfast with 1800W and this gets your meals on the dining room table quickly.
The second definition for a Smart Oven is related to new-fangled ways to control the oven and monitor cooking with connected ovens over Wi-Fi.
What Does A Smart Oven Do?
Smart Oven features and functions can include the ability to:
- Switch the oven on and off
- Preheat the oven remotely
- Adjust settings and timers remotely
- Receive cooking related notifications on your smartphone
Is the Breville Smart Oven Air worth it?
The Breville Smart Ovens are some of the best, high-quality ovens available on the market. You get what you pay for.
Is the Breville Smart Oven a convection oven?
Yes, the Breville Smart Oven is a convection oven. The Smart Oven Air with Element IQ is perfect for the home cook who wants a countertop oven that can roast all types of meat and fish for large family meals. The super convection setting reduces cooking time by up to 30% with perfect crispness.
What is the difference between Breville smart oven and smart oven pro?
The Breville Smart Oven Pro has two additional smart cooking features and is larger. It’s arguable if it’s worth the additional cost but they are both excellent ovens and performed well in all tests.
Which Breville toaster oven is the best?
The Breville Smart Oven Air Fryer gets our vote for the best Breville toaster oven.
Stay Connected With Breville
There’s even a fan created Breville Smart Oven Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1257701644355831/
New Breville Smart Ovens
Breville Smart Oven Pizzaiolo
A new addition to the Breville Smart Oven range is the Smart Oven Pizzaiolo. It’s advertised as coming soon so as soon as we get the chance to test one out we’ll add the results and our review.