
Review: The June oven made me want a camera in every cooking device - feross
https://arstechnica.com/?p=1429051
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Johnny555
_Of course, I don 't want the government reading my emails, but if June or the
NSA or some hacker wants to watch me toast my third bagel of the day, I think
the most they'll glean from that is that someone in my household is carbo-
loading._

Don't you think your health insurance company would like to keep an eye on
your diet to make sure you're eating healthy enough? Do you want Pillsbury to
send you ads after June told them you make a lot of cookies?

Seems like there is a treasure-trove of personal data to be mined from such an
oven (i.e. what time you eat meals, whether you're home for lunch, what days
your girlfriend joins you for dinner, etc)

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ghaff
That review honestly doesn't make a great case.

I have wondered why toasters seem to be such a difficult problem. I have a
good one and it toasts evenly but determining doneness for a given type of
bread is still pretty much a manual process.

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thaeli
Well, this was pretty much solved in 1949 with the the Sunbeam Radiant Control
toaster:
[http://www.automaticbeyondbelief.org/](http://www.automaticbeyondbelief.org/)

Unfortunately this amazing, simple, elegant solution was discontinued in the
1990s.

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mhh__
Surely this just takes the feel/romance away from cooking (More generally
rather than referring to this toaster in particular)?

$250 feels like a lot for what is ultimately a gimmick. A sous-vide immersion
circulator costs less than that, and that's actually ~useful~

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tootie
$250 was for the Breville. The June Oven is $600.

I'd quibble over the romance part. Efficient cooking through technology is a
hallmark of human civilization or else we'd all cook over open flames.

~~~
foobar1962
> Efficient cooking through technology is a hallmark of human civilization or
> else we'd all cook over open flames.

Efficiency has never been mentioned in the review, and does not appear to be a
criteria.

I'd question whether a toaster-oven for toast bread would be as efficient as a
normal 2-slice bread toaster. I'd suggest a toaster oven would be hugely
inefficient in comparison.

~~~
sowbug
I have no idea either way, but it seems that a toaster oven would be much more
efficient because it's insulated and enclosed. A normal toaster is basically a
very small room heater that happens to operate near bread.

Someone please do the web search and provide the answer.

~~~
ghaff
A toaster both dries and toasts slices of bread. So having an enclosed space
is not necessarily an advantage.

~~~
jowiar
It’s up there with using a bazooka to kill a fly, but the best toaster I’ve
had is a benzomatic+Searzall. The intensely hot but non-penetrating heat adds
a bit of crunch without drying the innards of the bread.

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village-idiot
Our household has a rule: no “smart” devices that fail the moment the company
is acquihired or bankrupted. That’s why I have a monoprice sous vide instead
of the Joule. This device sounds like it toes that line. And that’s not even
counting the “I put a camera in my kitchen” factor. I worry what your
insurance company could do with your food information.

Also, toast is a 2-3 time a year thing in my household, so I don’t even bother
with a $12 toaster, let alone a $250 one.

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madengr
The Breville stuff is complete garbage. Bought a expresso machine a few years
ago, crapped within 1 year, William Sonoma gave a new one, crapped again, I
fix it with parts from eBay, then craps again.

Unsealed shit switches in a humid environment, no conformal coating on PCB.
Not even real FR4, a cheap cardboard laminate found in chineseium toys.

Fancy stainless on the outside, garbage on the inside.

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Para2016
This is just an advertisement right? $600 is absurd for a toaster oven, camera
or not. "Bubble of everything" indeed.

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jaclaz
Absolutely off-topic, I initially read "June oven" like I would have read
"March hare" ...

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amelius
I was expecting an IR camera ...

