Are June smart ovens just randomly turning on and preheating themselves in the middle of the night? Users of the “do-it-all” oven are worried about this, but could it be a user error that is causing the seemingly random preheating incidents?

Smart Oven Random Preheating

A smart oven that can be remotely turned on and preheated is impressive and certainly convenient, but it would be unnerving to be notified that it has turned itself on in the middle of the night. However, this is something that users of the June smart oven have apparently been experiencing.

A report based on the Facebook group of June oven owners reveals that several owners have experienced having their ovens turned on seemingly on its own. In one case, a user had turned off the oven at about 5 p.m. only to find out the next day that it had turned on again at 1:20 a.m. and baked at 425 degrees for over four hours. In another case, a June owner was woken up by her phone at 6:30 a.m., saying that the oven was already preheated to 400 degrees and was ready to bake.

Though none of the users reported any fires, this has caused some to have to unplug their smart oven before going to bed at night, and perhaps rightly so especially since unattended cooking is responsible for 33 percent of home fires.

Human Error

According to June CEO Matt Van Horn, in these cases, it is actually the users who accidentally turned on their devices without even knowing it. In some cases, users may have tapped something on the app when closing all the apps before going to bed, or maybe even accidentally preheated it while looking at recipes on the June app. Amazon’s Alexa was even to blame for one owner’s unintended preheat. Simply put, this is the smart oven’s version of a butt dial.

As such, June is working on an update that will allow users to disable remote preheating and on updating its ovens to detect when there is no food in the oven. With the new feature set to roll out next year, the oven will automatically turn itself off after a period of time if food is not detected.

Strange as the issue may be, these are things that consumers and companies have to take note of in their smart home devices, as the risks they potentially pose are very real.