Breville Joule Oven Air Fryer Pro vs Breville Smart Oven Pro BOV845BSS

This isn't just a feature list difference — the Joule's app-driven autopilot actually cycles through multiple cooking modes in sequence, doing things like browning, steaming, and crisping a whole chicken in a way no manual oven can replicate. Good Housekeeping confirmed it in lab testing: whole chicken, cake, and pizza all cooked evenly, and they've been using it for over a year. The Smart Oven Pro is excellent, but it doesn't do this. If you cook proteins regularly and care about results, that gap is real.

The Joule runs $464–$550. The Smart Oven Pro runs $270–$340. That's a $200 gap at minimum, and the Smart Oven Pro scored higher with expert reviewers — 92/100 versus 85/100. The Joule's premium is entirely about the app and autopilot functionality. If you're not going to use those features consistently, you're paying a significant premium for a marginally larger accessory kit and quartz heating elements that are, ironically, harder to clean.

The spring-loaded door, insulated stainless steel frame, and intuitive digital display make the Smart Oven Pro feel like a premium appliance that gets out of your way. It toasts bread in 2:30 minutes — fastest among full-size models tested — and its convection fan consistently beats recipe time estimates by 5-10 minutes. The Joule requires a smartphone for its best features, which means if your phone is in another room or the app has an update, you're cooking manually anyway.

The Smart Oven Pro has been the default recommendation across Serious Eats, CNET, WIRED, and Reddit's air fryer community for years — and Serious Eats specifically tested 26 ovens before reconfirming it. The Joule is newer and earns top marks from WIRED and Good Housekeeping, but it's a niche recommendation for serious cooks, not a universal one. When multiple editors buy a product with their own money, that's a signal that's hard to argue with.