Google Home Essentials

Google Home Essentials: The Proscenic T21 air fryer enables voice-controlled cooking [Video]

Damien Wilde | Jul 1 2021 - 9:00 am PT

In the wild world of Google Home and Assistant-powered products, the kitchen remains one of the last areas to be fully explored — enter the Proscenic T21 air fryer.

Now I didn’t think that another $130 kitchen appliance would actively change the way I cooked, but with my eye on an air fryer for some time it came as a surprise that you can pick up devices that include Google Assistant integration.

Proscenic is known for making affordable robot/automated vacuum cleaners and air filtration appliances, so the T21 comes as a bit of a deviation from their usual product lineup. That said, there must be some crossover, as this is effectively a small fan oven that sits on your kitchen counter — and that brings some major space requirements a small kitchen might not be able to fulfill.

Honestly, I don’t know what I expected ahead of time, because this is a large appliance that needs plenty of worktop or counter space. Factor in a little extra room for the heat vents and its big kitchen space investment. Luckily, the basket is big enough to cook up multiple portions so that this sacrifice feels more acceptable, but it’s still important to note that you can’t hide it away easily when you’re done.

Let’s start with the basics first, as beyond the voice controls the Proscenic T21 comes with eight pre-set cooking modes for French fries, shrimp, pizza, chicken, fish, steak, cake, and bacon. These modes just set the temperature and timer to a predetermined period for optimum cooking. I’m not sure how Prosenic decided on the temperature and timings but I have found them pretty close to where they probably should be at least from the position of a novice cook.

The Proscenic app includes over 100 recipes but following a plant-based diet, I didn’t find too many that I could actively try out for myself. I will say that being able to control the cooking times of roasted vegetables and snacks has been a nice addition that has helped ensure that burning food is not something I have had to worry about too much. It’s quite easy to forget that you can actually cook multiple things at the very same time in the basket, speeding up your cooking times quite substantially.

Sure, smart home tech such as a cooker or kettle happens to be great if you want to schedule things in advance. Because I don’t eat meat, I’m able to leave things in the basket and then tell the Google Assistant to start cooking or end cooking at a certain time without worrying about food safety quite as much. The downside is that unlike a lightbulb, which is passive, you still need to actually interact with the device to get food cooked. Now that is a very lazy sentiment, but it does mean that the Proscenic T21 air fryer feels a little like a slow cooker but with a timed cooking window.

I will say that I had some difficulties actually getting my Proscenic account linked to my Google Home account during the initial setup phase. The app was easy to pair but linking directly to your Assistant might take a couple of attempts. For some reason, it didn’t recognize my login details and a quick chat with the in-app customer service helped get things up and running. I mainly kept voice commands to the basic “turn off the air fryer” or “power down the air fryer in 15 minutes”. You can ask for specific programs, but this isn’t something I made use of as there is no falafel option. My personal gripes aside, I didn’t encounter too many issues, but the dedicated app does provide much more flexibility in my experience.

There have been some pretty major concerns about the security of Wi-Fi enabled kitchen appliances. Cosori branded air fryers required an update recently to prevent remote attackers from gaining control of appliances and adjusting the thermostat and more. While there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that the Proscenic T21 air fryer is vulnerable to similar attacks, but I have taken to unplugging it when not in use — something I think is sensible with countertop kitchen appliances regardless of any perceived or potential security vulnerabilities.

Overall as an affordable entry into Google Assistant-powered kitchen appliances, the Proscenic T21 air fryer might be a solid option to take a look at. You can get the Proscenic T21 air fryer for $129 from Amazon.