Discover how smart appliances transform your kitchen into a smart and efficient space. Learn about smart fridges, dishwashers, ovens, ovens, toasters and other connected appliances with app control and smart home integration.
Smart kitchen appliances range from genuinely useful innovations that improve daily life to expensive gadgets that complicate simple tasks. This guide cuts through the marketing to identify which smart kitchen appliances are actually worth the investment for most households.
Smart Cooking Appliances
Smart Ovens
A smart oven connects to your Wi-Fi and can be controlled via an app. The practical benefits: preheat the oven on your way home from work, receive alerts when the oven reaches temperature, and monitor cooking progress without going to the kitchen.
The most capable smart ovens (like the June Oven, or the Wolf Connected oven module) include built-in cameras, temperature probes, and automated cooking programmes that adjust temperature and time based on what you are cooking. These are expensive (£1,000+) but genuinely useful for people who cook regularly.
For most households, a standard oven with a smart plug (to turn it on and off remotely) provides 80% of the practical benefit at a fraction of the cost.
Instant Pot and Multi-Cookers
The Instant Pot and its competitors (Mealthy MultiPot, Ninja Foodi) are among the most consistently praised kitchen appliances by people who own them. They combine slow cooking, pressure cooking, rice cooking, steaming, and yoghurt making in a single appliance. The ability to pressure cook dried beans from scratch in 30 minutes, or slow-cook a stew all day while you are at work, fundamentally changes what is practical for weeknight cooking.
Smart Thermometers and Probes
A wireless meat thermometer (like the MEATER or ThermoWorks Signals) monitors the temperature of meat or baked goods via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, sending real-time updates to your phone. The practical benefit: you can monitor the roast from the living room, receive an alert when the meat reaches the perfect temperature, and never overcook a joint of beef again.
Smart Fridges and Food Management
What Smart Fridges Actually Do
Smart fridges have built-in cameras (often via a touchscreen door) that let you view the fridge contents from your phone — useful when shopping. More advanced models track expiry dates and suggest recipes based on what is inside. Some integrate with grocery delivery services for automatic ordering when items run low.
The practical value of these features is mixed. The cameras are genuinely useful when grocery shopping. Expiry date tracking requires manually logging items, which is a friction that most people do not maintain. Consider whether you will actually use these features before paying a premium for them.
Fridge Temperature Monitoring
A simple wifi-connected temperature sensor inside your fridge (like a SensorPush or Inkbird) monitors temperature and humidity continuously, alerting you if temperatures rise dangerously (e.g., if the door has been left open or the compressor has failed). This is particularly valuable for wine fridges and pharmaceutical-grade refrigeration where temperature excursions are costly.
Smart Cleaning Appliances
Self-Emptying Robot Vacuums
The latest generation of robot vacuums (Roborock S7 MaxV, iRobot Roomba j7+) automatically empty their dustbin into a bag in the charging base. This means you only need to empty the base station every 30–60 days rather than every few days. This is a genuine quality-of-life improvement that makes daily vacuuming truly autonomous.
Dishwasher Smart Features
Smart dishwashers (like Bosch Serie 8 with Home Connect) can be started and monitored remotely, alert you when rinse aid or salt runs low, and suggest the optimal programme based on load type. For most households, these features are convenience rather than necessity — but for those who want to start a load on the way home from work, they are genuinely useful.
Smart Scales and Food Monitoring
Kitchen Scales
A wifi-connected kitchen scale (like the Drop Scale or Greater Goods) works with recipe apps to automatically adjust ingredient quantities based on what you weigh. This is particularly useful for baking, where precision matters. For cooking, it is less critical.
Food Scales and Portion Control
For people tracking food intake for health reasons, smart food scales (like those by Withings or Xiaomi) log weight data to an app, building a history of eating habits. Combined with a smart water scale, this gives a comprehensive picture of nutrition without manual logging.
Kitchen Lighting and Voice Control
Smart Lighting in the Kitchen
Under-cabinet smart lighting (like Philips Hue Lightstrip or Govee LED bars) illuminates work surfaces without the installation complexity of hardwired lighting. Motion-sensor-activated lighting under cabinets provides instant illumination when you approach with groceries — a surprisingly useful feature that becomes habitual quickly.
Voice Assistants
A voice assistant (Amazon Echo or Google Nest Hub) in the kitchen is genuinely useful for setting timers, converting measurements, checking recipe steps hands-free, and adding items to a shopping list while cooking. Position it away from the hob and extractor fan to prevent accidental activation.
What to Skip
Smart refrigerators with touchscreen displays and grocery integration are expensive and the features are rarely used enough to justify the premium. Smart toasters (with variable browning apps) are a solution looking for a problem. Wi-Fi-enabled coffee makers are useful but most people do not need to start their coffee from outside the home.
Conclusion
The smart kitchen appliances that deliver the most practical value are: a smart speaker or display for hands-free timers and recipe guidance; a multi-cooker (Instant Pot or equivalent) for hands-off cooking; a wireless meat thermometer for oven monitoring; and under-cabinet smart lighting for task illumination. These are affordable, genuinely useful, and widely available. More specialised smart appliances should be evaluated against the specific problem they solve before buying.