Samsung Bespoke Smart Slide-In Induction Range with AI Home Review

Verdict

A very powerful and smart range, the Samsung Bespoke Smart Slide-In Induction Range with AI Home has a clever auto-open door, a touchscreen interface for the induction hob and oven, and remote control via SmartThings, which even lets you see inside via the camera.

The LCD can be a little unresponsive at times, particularly when wet, but that minor issue aside, this range is a brilliant upgrade and a powerful cooker.

Introduction

Ovens and induction hobs with apps have been available for a long time, but smart features have been limited to remote control. The Samsung Bespoke Smart Slide-In Induction Range is a smart range in more than one way: it has remote control, a camera inside for remotely monitoring cooking, and a motorised door.

Simple to use, powerful and efficient, this is a thoroughly modern range that provides an excellent cooking experience.

Design and Features

• Touchscreen control
• Automatic door opening
• Compatible with SmartThings

The Samsung Bespoke Smart Slide-In Induction Range is a freestanding appliance, designed to replace your existing 29 15/16-inch range. It’s available in the white I have on review, and stainless steel.

Part of Samsung’s bespoke line, this range is extremely attractive. Sleek and modern looking, it will complement any existing kitchen. Plus, it has an ambient lighting mode, with an LED strip across the front that can add a bit of flair to your kitchen, while providing some additional ambient light. The light’s colour temperature is selectable via the full-colour LCD panel.

It’s via this panel that the oven door has to be opened, with a motor gently sliding the door open. It might seem like this is a bit overkill, but it’s handy in multiple ways. First, it’s easier to open the door, and it’s safer for those with small children, as they can’t open the door while the oven’s on.

For the latter, the door open button requires two presses, which is good for safety, but it can be a little frustrating when you want to open the door fast, and it makes the Samsung Bespoke Smart Slide-In Induction Range a little slow to use.

Inside the oven, there’s a large 6.3 cu. ft cavity, with five shelf supports and two wire shelves provided in the box. There’s plenty of room inside this oven to cook for a large family or lots of guests.

On top is the four-burner induction hob, rated at 4.3kW, which you’ll need to use with induction pans.

As mentioned, control of the oven and hob is via the large 7-inch LCD panel on the front. For the induction hob, there are four burners: two 7-inch on the left, a 6-inch in the middle and an 11-inch on the front right.

Each burner has nine power settings and a Boost mode for when you need to boil water fast. The two 7-inch burners can be synchronized into one large zone, with a Boost to 2300W, while the 11-inch zone can boost to 4300W, and the 6-inch to 2000W.

As the Boost modes can exceed the hob’s maximum power output, there are some power limitations: stick a zone on Boost, and the other zones have their maximum power limited. The limitations vary depending on which zones are on, and which you want to Boost, but the touchscreen at least explains what’s going on.

I mostly found the touchscreen responsive and easy to use, but if it gets water on it (which is inevitable), it can be unresponsive until it’s wiped down.

Oven control is also available via the touchscreen, which gives you all of the available modes, including Convection Bake, Convection Roast, Convection Vegetable, Broil, and Air Fry.

Selecting a mode lets you set the cooking temperature and cooking time. Having a large LCD means it’s very easy to find and select the right mode, and the oven is fast and responsive.

It’s good to see that Samsung has included a temperature probe with this oven. Plug this in and insert it into your food, and the oven can stop cooking at the point your food is done, which prevents overcooking and drying out meat, such as chicken or turkey.

You can also use Bixby to set the oven, although I still had to physically hit the Start button on the LCD to get the oven going.

As this is a smart oven, it can connect to SmartThings, which gives you full remote control over the Samsung Bespoke Smart Slide-In Induction Range. That’s handy, as I could set the oven without having to get up off the couch.

This is the first oven that I’ve seen to have a camera inside, too. Using SmartThings, I could keep an eye on my food as it cooked. That’s particularly handy as a timer comes towards the end, as I could see if extra time was needed without having to go to the oven itself.

Via the touchscreen and app, the oven also offers recipes, with cooking instructions. It’s potentially useful to help understand the oven’s features, although I suspect that most people will switch to manual control once they fully understand the modes and options.

Other smart features include integrated Spotify, although it’s hard to see who exactly would want to listen to music on their oven when a dedicated speaker will do a better job.

Performance

• Very fast top burner
• Even cooking
• Powerful broiler

To test the hob, I wanted to see how fast it was to bring water to the boil. Using the largest burner, with 51 fl. Oz. of water, I found it managed the job in just 2m 31s, which is extremely fast. That’s very handy for cooking a large pot of pasta, and is far quicker than doing the same job on a gas hob.

With the 7-inch hob, my pan of 34 fl. Oz. of water took 3m 10s to come to the boil. Again, a good result, even if it’s behind the speed of the large pan.

More importantly, the hob is brilliant to cook on. It’s fast and responsive to changes, and there’s plenty of physical space.

I switched to use the oven, and found that it cooked a variety of food evenly and well, including some bread rolls.

Using the broiler, I layered slices of bread on the top shelf. As you can see from the results, each slice was toasted, although the broiler is slightly hotter in the middle, so just be careful.

An easy-clean hob surface makes it quick to clean up spills, while the oven has an integrated self-clean mode that uses high temperatures to burn off grease, making it fast to clean.

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