Our Place Wonder Oven Pro Review: I Tested the Complaints

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If you do a search for Wonder Oven Pro one of the top results for this product is a Reddit thread titled “Wonder Oven Pro: Do not Recommend.” Scroll a little further and you will find a wall of glowing coverage from the big commerce sites. Nobody explains why both of those types of opinions may be true, so I am writing this Wonder Oven Pro review as a test of the complaints rather than another round of first impressions.

I have had the Pro on my counter since September. For this Wonder Oven Pro review, I have timed its preheat with a stopwatch, measured the interior, roasted a whole chicken in it, air fried a tray of frozen potatoes, cleaned it after a fatty cook and read both the manual and the brand's California chemical disclosure end to end. Some of the complaints hold up and two of them turn out to be about a different machine entirely.

Disclaimer: Links may contain affiliate links, which means we may get paid a commission at no additional cost to you if you purchase through this page. Read our full disclosure here.

Which Our Place Wonder Oven You Need

Start here, because this is where most of the confusion on the internet comes from. The Our Place Wonder Oven line has three machines in it and the loudest criticism you will find is not about the one you are probably shopping for.

Wirecutter's negative review, the one titled “Don't Let the Super-Cute Wonder Oven Fool You,” tested the original 12 litre model with the three analog dials. Serious Eats reviewed the Large. Google blends all three into one set of search results, so you can read four reviews of what looks like the same appliance and none of them are describing the machine I currently have on my counter. The Pro launched in late September 2025 and it is a different product: bigger, digital and eight functions instead of six.

The Pro's product page is headlined “Built for Family-Sized Cooking,” while an answer further down the same page says that if you are cooking for a family, the Large is probably more your speed. After comparing the features, here is my short version: the reason to pay up for the Pro is the digital control panel and the quartz elements, not the capacity. The Large actually holds more. If you do not care about setting an exact temperature, the original is a lot of appliance for $185.

The Complaints, and Which Ones Held Up

I went through the Reddit threads, the owner reviews and the critical press coverage and pulled out every specific complaint I could find. Then I tested them.

“It takes ages to preheat”

This one is contested in public and both sides are right. One owner says it takes forever. Another says it is super quick. Both of these opinions are likely in comparison to whatever appliance they were hoping to replace. Nobody had published an actual number, so I timed it. From cold and empty, on Bake, to 375°F: six minutes and sixteen seconds. My full size range takes about seventeen minutes to reach the same temperature. So the Pro is roughly 63 percent faster than my range oven, which slightly beats Our Place's own claim of 60 percent faster, measured under the same conditions.

It is also slower than a basket air fryer, which is ready in about three minutes. That is why there are diverging opinions about speed. If you are coming from a basket Ninja, it will feel slow. If you are replacing trips to your wall oven, it will feel fast. Worth noting that Our Place measured their claim on Bake, which is the one mode where the convection fan does not run, so they tested it under the least flattering condition available to them.

“It arrived broken”

Several owners report units arriving dead or with discoloration on the top panel, and at least one says it sounded like a known fault. Mine arrived in perfect condition, so I cannot confirm or deny a pattern from one unit.

What I can tell you is what the warranty says. Coverage runs one year from delivery and it explicitly excludes cosmetic blemishes, stains, discolorations and scratches, along with glass parts and the accessories packed with the unit. If your Pro shows up with a discolored top, that is something that would be covered more under a return. On appliances you also pay the return shipping on a claim. The 100 day trial is the better safety net here, so inspect it properly right when you get it.

“Air fry is the weakest mode”

This is the most credible criticism of the original model, where testers found it did everything well except the function it is named for. I ran a tray of frozen potatoes on Air Fry in the basket at position 2 and they came out crisp, evenly browned and evenly heated edge to edge. No rotating or shuffling halfway.

One thing to mention, because it is buried in the manual: the air fryer basket can only be used in positions 2 and 3. The bake pan and the wire rack work in all three, but the basket does not. So the appliance is sold on three cooking tiers and the accessory that does the air frying is restricted to the top two.

“It smokes”

It did not smoke while roasting a fatty chicken, which surprised me. The manual explains why this complaint exists anyway: smoke and odor on first use are expected and you are told to run an empty cycle at 400°F for ten minutes in a ventilated room before you cook anything. After that, their troubleshooting attributes white smoke to accumulated grease and fatty foods.

So smoking is probably not a first-roast problem. It is a third-roast problem and whether you hit it depends on how thoroughly you clean a surface that is hard to reach. More on that below.

“The controls are not exact”

True of the original and the Large, which use three dials. This is not true of the Pro. The touchscreen sets an exact time and temperature, holds it and lets you change either mid-cook without stopping. You can also toggle Fahrenheit to Celsius by holding the temp button for three seconds and silence all the chimes by holding the time button for three seconds.

What the Wonder Oven Pro Is Made Of

This is the section I care most about and the one no other review on the first page attempts. “Non-Toxic Stainless Steel Interior” is the headline on the product page. That is true, but also not the whole picture, because there are three different food-contact materials in this machine and they each behave differently.

The lab testing and what it does not cover

Our Place publishes third-party results from Light Labs, an ISO 17025 accredited laboratory, directly on the product page. For the Wonder Oven cooking accessories, which covers the bake pan, air fryer basket and wire rack, lead and cadmium came back not detected, PFOA came back not detected and a panel of other PFAS compounds also came back not detected.

The result that carries the most weight is the one most people will skim past. Total Organic Fluorine came back not detected. A targeted PFAS panel only finds the specific compounds it looks for, while total organic fluorine screens for fluorine bound to organic molecules generally, which catches the ones a targeted test would miss. There are thousands of PFAS compounds. A brand publishing a total organic fluorine result is making a substantially stronger claim than one publishing a PFOA result and hardly anyone in this category publishes either. If you want the background on why that distinction matters, I wrote about it in what PFAS are.

Now the honest part, the testing widget is labelled Wonder Oven, not Wonder Oven Pro and the sample is listed as the cooking accessories. The Pro ships a deeper bake pan and two racks, so I have asked Our Place whether the Pro's parts were in the tested sample. The panel also covers lead and cadmium but not chromium or nickel, no detection limits are published so “not detected” has no number attached to it and these read as tests on the materials rather than migration tests measuring what moves into food during cooking. I will update this section when they answer.

The chromium question, answered in a place nobody looks

California's AB 1200 requires cookware makers to disclose chemicals on a state list that are intentionally added to food-contact surfaces. Our Place publishes that disclosure and the appliance category, which names the Wonder Oven Pro explicitly, lists aluminum, manganese, iron, chromium and copper.

Read that carefully before you panic, because I have seen this kind of disclosure misread. Chromium is what makes stainless steel stainless. Its presence is expected in any stainless appliance and the disclosure is a transparency requirement, not a warning. Our Place states plainly that they have no reason to believe their products present a health risk and that the items comply with FDA rules for food contact.

The more interesting detail is what is missing. Nickel is not listed for the appliances. It is listed for their aluminum cookware and their carbon steel wok and their own table flags nickel with Proposition 65 and an IARC Group 1 classification, so its absence from the appliance line is a real distinction. If you are one of the many women who react to nickel, that is a useful answer and it comes from a document they were legally required to file rather than from a customer service email.

Does any of it migrate into food? That is the question that matters, and the honest answer is that nobody has published data on this specific appliance. What we do have is research on stainless in general. A study in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry found that stainless steel does leach nickel and chromium into food during cooking, with new steel leaching the most and the amounts dropping off and stabilizing after about six cooking cycles. The caveat matters as much as the finding: that study simmered acidic tomato sauce for two to twenty hours in a saucepan, which is nothing like roasting a chicken for an hour in a dry cavity. It tells you stainless is not perfectly inert and that acidity and contact time drive the result.

My take, for whatever it is worth after years of digging into this category: a stainless interior with one ceramic-coated accessory is a materially better setup than a nonstick-coated basket air fryer and it is the reason this machine earned a spot in my non-toxic air fryer roundup. If you want the broader picture on coated versus uncoated cookware, my PFAS free cookware guide covers what I use and why, and the Xtrema review gets into how ceramic coatings behave over time.

The Capacity Number Does Not Add Up

Their own published interior dimensions are 13.75 by 13 by 7.75 inches. That works out to 1,385 cubic inches, which is 22.7 litres. The advertised figure is about 23 percent larger and you can check that math. I measured the interior width at right about 14 inches, which confirms their number, so the discrepancy is not a manufacturing variance. It's more likely about what they're considering total space versus what is actually usable between the heating elements.

Our Place advertises the Pro at 28 litres, and says that capacity means you can fit a whole chicken, a 12 inch pizza or dinner for the family.

Independent testing at rtings measured usable volume at 16.7 quarts, roughly 15.8 litres. So there are three numbers floating around for one appliance: 28 advertised, 22.7 by their own dimensions and 15.8 measured usable. Oven capacity is conventionally quoted as total cavity volume. What matters more in practice is clearance. From the lowest rack to the top heating element I measured about five inches, and the manual warns that food touching the top element is a fire risk. So the number to think about is not litres, it is how tall your food is.

The good news is that their headline claim survives the test. My 4.75 pound chicken fit on the bottom rack with over an inch to spare. A larger roaster, six or seven pounds, would not clear, so buy accordingly if you want to cook a whole chicken in the Wonder Oven Pro.

What I Cooked in It

I bought a 4.75 pound organic whole chicken, $3.99 a pound, $18.95 total. Roast mode, 400°F, bottom rack because the manual recommends position 1 for larger cuts of meat, about an hour.

It came out like a rotisserie chicken. Juicy, tender, properly browned skin. I was not expecting that, because I made a small mistake on this cook that could have cost me. I usually pull poultry at 160°F and let carryover bring it up during the rest, but I skipped my wireless probe with the temperature alarm for this first run and checked with a Thermapen NANO instead. By the time I checked, the breast was at 165°F. That is USDA's recommended temperature for poultry, so this was a texture risk rather than a safety issue and the bird was still excellent.

Two things are worth pointing out. First, the appliance was more forgiving than I expected since I did not use the steam infusion function at all. The juicy chicken result came from the quartz elements and convection in a small cavity, not from the feature they market as the differentiator. Second, use a probe with an alarm if you have one. I usually use my wireless thermometer for every meat cook, but I was feeling a bit rushed on this one and just wanted to get it in the oven. Even Our Place's own manual makes the same point for a specific reason: outlet voltage varies, which affects how a countertop appliance performs, so they tell you to verify with a thermometer rather than trusting the timer.

The meat from one bird became a batch of keto chicken salad with some leftover, which is my standard move with a roast chicken and the reason a roasting appliance earns counter space in the first place. One cook, several high-protein meals, no oven heating up the house.

The frozen potatoes on Air Fry were the other test, and they were excellent: crisp, even color, even heat, no rotating required.

Is air frying better for you?

Here is a distinction almost every review of these machines gets wrong. Research in Frontiers in Nutrition found that air frying reduced acrylamide in French fries by up to 47 percent compared with deep frying. However, one of the authors is affiliated with an appliance manufacturer and the same study found air frying produced less resistant starch than deep frying, which cuts the other way for metabolic health.

But acrylamide forms in carbohydrate-rich foods. That finding is about the potatoes. It tells you nothing about your chicken breast, which raises the obvious question: what happens when you cook protein this way?

Less than most reviews imply, and it cuts both ways. Most of the research on air frying protein has been done on seafood rather than poultry, and the answer depends entirely on what you are comparing it against.

Against deep frying, air frying wins on fat. A study in Frontiers in Nutrition found air fried shrimp had lower fat and a higher protein content than deep fried shrimp, with between 4.26 and 6.58 grams less fat per 100 grams depending on temperature. No surprise there, since you are not submerging the food in oil.

Against gentler cooking, it loses. Research in Food Chemistry: X compared boiling, air frying and boiling followed by air frying in crayfish and found lipid oxidation was highest in the air fried samples, measured three different ways. A separate study in Food Chemistry found that both air frying and deep frying produced more protein and lipid oxidation in oysters than vacuum frying did.

Put that together and the honest summary is narrower than the marketing. If an air fryer is replacing deep frying in your kitchen, that is a real improvement and the fat numbers back it up. If it is replacing roasting, poaching or a gentler method, there is no evidence you are getting a health upgrade and some evidence that fast, dry, high heat oxidizes fats more, not less. High heat is high heat regardless of how the air moves around it.

So buy this because it cooks well and saves you from heating a full oven on a weeknight. That is a good enough reason. “Air frying is healthier” is mostly a statement about fried potatoes and anyone repeating it about your salmon is extending a potato result well past where the research goes.

The Eight Modes and Which Ones Matter

Eight functions sounds like just marketing, but the differences between the modes actually do accomplish different things.

The one I would point out is Roast. It runs in three temperature bands, and the lowest one, 175 to 275°F, will hold for up to twelve hours. That makes this a potential low and slow appliance too, not just an air fryer with extra buttons. Pot roast, pulled pork or brisket without heating your kitchen in August would be a great use for this.

Steam infusion is the feature Our Place markets hardest and the one I have not tested yet. It works by adding up to five teaspoons of water to an inlet on top, after preheating finishes, and it is available on air fry, roast, bake, toast, reheat and broil. Their own guidance is three teaspoons for bread and five for steak, fish or chicken wings. I will report back on whether it makes a measurable difference once I have run it.

Cleaning Is the Real Tradeoff

Let me set some context, because I think the complaints about cleaning are fair but also not specific to this machine. I have owned a lot of air fryers over the years, plus a small Anova steam oven and every one of them is annoying to clean for the same two reasons. You are wiping surfaces inside a small box with little room for your hand and if you are cooking anything with fat in it you are generally cooking it uncovered, since we want the crisping an air fryer provides. Grease goes everywhere no matter which brand you have.

What is specific to the Pro is the back wall. It is faceted into a pyramid pattern, presumably for heat distribution and spatter settles into all of those little recesses instead of wiping off in one pass. After a single chicken there was fine grease spatter across the side walls and caught in the texture on the back.

The top interior had grease too and it is the one genuine design complaint I have…but again this is not specific to Wonder Oven only. There was plenty of grease up there after one bird and you are working blindly to clean it at an awkward angle. If you wanted to clean it properly you would almost have to turn the whole unit upside down.

This matters since the manual specifically tells you to clean the top interior to prevent grease buildup and smoking on later cooks. So the surface that causes the smoking complaint is the surface that is hardest to clean well.

What worked

Total cleanup after the chicken took about seven minutes, for everything I could reach. Here is what I learned.

The manual rules out most of what you would reach for. No abrasive cleaners, no oven cleaner sprays, no steel wool on the appliance or the accessories, nothing in the dishwasher because the finishes may degrade. It does not tell you what you could use instead. I sprayed the interior down with Truly Free Dye-Free Heavy Duty Degreaser and wiped it out. Some grease had already started to set as it cooled, but most of it came off easily. A nontoxic degreaser that breaks down fat without harsh fumes is the right tool here and it is what I use on all of my ovens.

The ceramic coated bake pan was perfectly nonstick. I wiped the grease off and washed it, no scrubbing at all. The bare steel crumb tray was the one that needed work, with a bit of stuck-on residue that took some scrubbing. Coatings do a job and this part doesn't have any. However, the question with any ceramic coating is always how it behaves at month twelve rather than week one, which is exactly what I will be watching.

One habit worth building from day one: wipe the glass door every single time. Mine came perfectly clean, but if you let grease sit on the inside of a door like this it will go sticky and cloud over fast and at that point you have lost it.

Two rules from the manual I would not ignore. The crumb tray goes underneath the bottom heating elements, never into a rack slot and you should never run the oven without it. Also, do not put oil in the bake pan, which they flag as a fire risk.

Wonder Oven Pro vs Breville Smart Oven

This is the comparison people search for most. I have not personally tested a Breville Smart Oven Pro, but I can tell you how the decision breaks down in comparison.

Breville is the more established cooking appliance, with a longer track record and more granular presets. The Wonder Oven Pro's case rests on three things Breville does not offer: a stainless interior with no nonstick-coated basket, published third-party lab testing and a full chemical disclosure and steam infusion. If your priority is materials and what touches your food, Wonder Oven wins. If your priority is pure cooking performance and long-term reliability, Breville has the deeper history, but has more questionable materials.

The other honest point is aesthetic. The Wonder Oven Pro is a nice looking object in a way most countertop appliances are not, with a slightly retro shape and colors that are not black plastic. Mine is the Pistachio. That is not a performance argument, but if something is going to live permanently on your counter it is definitely worth considering.

What It Costs and Whether It Is Worth It

The Wonder Oven Pro lists at $325. It goes on sale periodically and I have seen it at $269, so if you are not in a hurry it is worth watching. You'll get the best available deal with my link and it comes with a 100 day trial, free shipping and returns, plus a one year limited warranty.

Worth knowing before you buy: the accessory kits are separate. The Pro Essentials Kit is $79 and the Pro Chef's Kit is $89. The unit ships with a bake pan, an air fryer basket, a wire rack and the crumb tray, which covers everything I have done with it so far, so I would not add a kit until you know you need one.

Every Wonder Oven Pro review eventually has to answer whether it's worth it, so here is my opinion. If you are replacing a basket air fryer purely to air fry, no. A good basket unit costs a third of this and preheats faster, although many in that style still use materials with forever chemicals. The case for the Pro is that it replaces several things at once: an air fryer, a toaster oven, a dehydrator, a proofing box and a decent share of your wall oven use. It roasts a whole chicken properly, which most countertop appliances cannot do and it does it in a stainless cavity rather than a coated basket. For me that combination justifies the price. For someone who mostly reheats and makes toast, it probably does not.

Who Should Buy It and Who Should Skip It

Buy it if you cook protein regularly and want a countertop appliance that can roast, you care about what your food touches and want a stainless interior instead of a coated basket, you want exact temperature control rather than a dial or you want one machine that replaces four.

Skip it if you only air fry and already own a basket unit you like, you regularly roast birds over five pounds, you have limited counter space (this needs an inch of clearance on every side plus above, and it is nearly 17 inches wide), or you want something you can throw in the dishwasher.

Consider the original instead if precision does not matter to you. At around $185 the standard Wonder Oven has the same stainless interior and the same steam function, in a smaller package with dials.

How I Keep This Review Current

I update this Wonder Oven Pro review as I put more cooks through the machine rather than leaving it frozen at first impressions. Everything above comes from my own unit in my own kitchen, with measurements taken by hand and specifications checked against the manual and the brand's own disclosures rather than repeated from other reviews.

What I still owe you: a proper test of steam infusion, a verdict on how the ceramic bake pan coating holds up after several months of use, and answers from Our Place on whether the published lab testing covers the Pro's specific accessories and what the detection limits were. When those land, they go into this page with the date changed.

If you are still weighing options, my non-toxic air fryer guide compares this against everything else I have tested, and GreenPan vs Caraway covers the same materials questions on the cookware side.