Tovala Smart Oven Review: Convenient Meals at a Premium Price
Tovala's $299 smart oven automates meal cooking, but a two-week test finds uneven meat texture, strong convenience and meals starting at $13.99 apiece.
Summary
A two-week test published September 17, 2026, found Tovala highly convenient but less consistent than good home cooking. Co-founder and CEO David Rabie conceived the service as a fresh alternative requiring takeout-level effort. Users load preportioned ingredients, add seasoning packets, scan a QR code in the companion app, and let the countertop oven change temperatures and cooking modes automatically. The $299 oven bakes, broils, air fries, toasts and reheats, while the $349 Smart Oven Pro adds steam.
Tovala offers more than 45 weekly choices, including steak with garlic mashed potatoes, salmon and vegetables, butternut squash soup, pasta and pineapple shrimp stir-fry. Plans cover 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 or 16 meals and can be skipped, paused or canceled. Single-serving meals start at $13.99, two-serving meals at about $17.98 total, or $8.99 per serving, plus $10.99 shipping, and family meals at $35.96. Unlike HelloFresh, Tovala charges a premium for automating most cooking. The shrimp dish delivered flavorful sauce and well-cooked rice, but steak lacked crust and needed pan browning, undermining the hands-off promise. Barcode scanning automatically configures compatible grocery products such as frozen waffles, preserving the oven’s usefulness without a Tovala subscription. Tovala sells through its website and Amazon, shipping to most U.S. states except Alaska and Hawaii.
Positives
- More than 45 weekly meals provide choices spanning steak, salmon, soup, pasta and shrimp.
- The $299 oven automatically changes temperatures and modes while baking, broiling, air frying, toasting or reheating.
- The $349 Smart Oven Pro adds steam cooking to the standard model’s five functions.
- Barcode scanning selects settings for compatible grocery products, keeping the oven useful after meal-kit orders stop.
- Plans covering 4 to 16 weekly meals can be skipped, paused or canceled.
Risks & concerns
- Single-serving meals start at $13.99, while every delivery adds a $10.99 shipping fee.
- Two-serving meals start around $17.98 total, and family-sized options begin at $35.96.
- Steak lacked a proper crust and required steel-pan browning, defeating Tovala’s mostly hands-off proposition.
- Meal quality varied and did not consistently match strong home cooking or a good restaurant meal.
- Shipping excludes Alaska and Hawaii despite covering most U.S. states.