Sharp Smart Convection Wall Oven with Microwave Drawer (SWB3085HS) Review

Design and Features

• Convection Wall Oven with Microwave Drawer
• Alexa support, with 150 commands
• Full Color 7-inch. TFT Touch Glass Display

This counter height wall oven really sells itself on its vast array of smart, connected features – from Alexa voice command support to 45 cooking presets. Unlike most ovens, which are controlled by various dials, the SWB3085HS puts most of its functionality into a big 7-inch color TFT touch display.

Through the touch display, you can access all the main functions of the oven and quickly get to presets without too much hunting. It’s certainly not the most responsive display, but the touch targets are nice and big and work even when hands are a little greasy or messy from food. 

Sharp has smartly made sure the software that runs here is very visual rather than overreliant on text. Images of food you might want to cook are large and you don’t need to squint at small text to work out where to go.

The SWB3085HS is a modern-looking oven, hardly surprising given it is anchored by a large display in the middle. It is a 30” width oven, with a 5.0 cu.ft. main oven and a 1.2 cu. ft. 950W Microwave Drawer that can be opened smoothly with the press of a button on the display or a wave of a hand. Clever,

All the doors have soft-close tech that works well, and the unit is finished with stainless steel and edge-to-edge black glass. It does look smart, although it won’t appeal to those who prefer their appliances to be a bit more traditional in design.

Inside the oven, there are three racks, two standard ones and one that is designed specifically to smoothly glide in and out. These racks can be placed in six different positions, and there is plenty of versatility to fitt various sized items inside.

I really like the gray interior as it makes seeing inside so much clearer than a more traditional black.

This is a feature-packed oven, both in terms of the smart features (which I mostly disregarded after an initial play) and general features that would be expected when the cost of entry is so high.

The SWB3085HS features three convection modes – grill, bake, and roast. Two thermal modes for grill (3500W) and bake (2200W), a meat temperature probe, air fry settings and a dedicated mode for keeping stuff warm at a constant temperature. Having a built-in meat probe is great, and you can set the oven to cook until a piece of meat reaches a certain temperature – ensuring it doesn’t overcook.

Moving down to the microwave drawer, which is situated in the bottom part of the appliance, this features a maximum 950W output along with various modes for defrosting, specific cooking modes (think seafood, rice, baked potato), and even warming and softening modes. If you don’t want to use the presets, there are 11 power levels to pick from.

The Alexa integration is neat, and I do think it looks almost futuristic on a spec sheet or website. The idea of talking to your oven should be great; however, in practice, I can’t see many using it past the initial setup. First, you need an actual Echo device to get it going – rather than this functionality being inside the oven itself. 

Setup is a bit of a pain. It did take me numerous attempts to get the oven to actually connect to the Wi-Fi network, and then even when it was connected, the connection would constantly drop out. It’s more hassle than it’s worth, especially for limited control anyway. You can at least control both the oven and microwave through around 150 Alexa commands,

Performance

• Display makes for easy operation
• Even cooking
• Microwave works well

I started my tests by seeing how well the Sharp SWB3085HS distributes heat. This is vital, as it ensures heat will evenly get to all the different parts of whatever you’re cooking.

For this test, I loaded up a tray full of ceramic beads, set the oven to 400°F, and used a thermal camera to take a photo. On the middle shelf, as the image below shows (white is hottest), you can see that the heat is evenly distributed, with only a very few portions missing out.

Moving the tray to the top of the oven, the heat is well spread around the whole tray and you’ll get a more even heat on this shelf.

I cooked a tray of frozen fries in the oven using the default fan option. The result was evenly browned all over, with a very crispy finish. Often, you’ll find some parts of the fry burn before others cook, but that wasn’t the case here. I repeated this test with the air fry mode, and the results weren’t quite as crisp but were still great.

To test the microwave, I ran through all the preset modes – softening butter, cooking some carrot and defrosting some chicken tenders. Overall, everything worked as expected.

Controlling the oven with the touch screen is both a benefit and a bit of a downer. While the screen isn’t as responsive as a phone, taking a little force to actually get it to register commands, it does mostly work as expected. You can set temperatures, select from a list of presets with nice visuals and set timers. Those kinds of jobs are much easier on the screen than with dials. You can also save recipes (up to 30) for quick access, so you won’t forget a key step if you don’t write it down.

Still, it can be a little slow, and I did find myself constantly getting annoyed with jumping through various menus to get started cooking.

Should you buy it?