JuneIf you’re one of those people that worries about leaving their oven on after cooking, then maybe a smart oven isn’t the best device for you.
Owners of the June Oven have been reporting that their smart ovens have been turning on overnight and preheating to 400 degrees all by themselves. The oven is supposed to simplify cooking through the monitoring of heating food through an app. The dangers are that this oven can be turned on accidentally with just a single touch of an app.
According to The Verge, at least three people have reported in a private Facebook group for June owners the ovens have turned on without their knowledge. One owner’s oven turned on unknowingly in the middle of the night and heated up to 400 degrees, only noticing the oven turned on hours later when they woke up.
JuneThe CEO of Matt Van Horn has attributed the issues to user errors rather than the oven’s fault. He told The Verge:
We’ve seen a few cases where customers have accidentally activated their oven preheat via a device, figure your cell phone… So imagine if I were to be in the June app clicking recipes and I accidentally tapped something that preheated my oven, we’ve seen a few cases of that.
The company’s website claims that the device acts as a convection oven, air fryer, dehydrator, slow cooker, broiler, toaster, and warming drawer all in one. It uses cameras and sensors in order to correctly identify certain foods and cook them to perfection.
A long term solution to this problem is updating the ovens to recognise when there isn’t any food inside of the oven. This will then turn off the heating element of the device if there is no food detected inside for a lengthy period of time. This is something that June are hoping to roll out next year.
June OvenVan Horn has said that the team is rolling out an update next month that will allow owners to disable the ability to preheat an oven from their smartphone. It’s a step in the right direction, even if it doesn’t help to automatically tell you if your oven has been left on all night.
While the company pointed the finger at the owners rather than their products for the oven being left on, it doesn’t hide the fact that smart ovens pose a real threat if they’re accidentally turned on.
Let’s hope nobody’s house doesn’t burn down because their oven has the ability to turn itself back on.
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Matt Weston is a lover of electric cars, artificial intelligence and space. From Cornwall, he’s a UCLan graduate that still dreams of being a Formula One driver in the very near future. Previously work includes reporting for regional newspapers and freelance video for the International Business Times.