For those who need above-average capacity or like the idea of remote controlling their air fryer over Wi-Fi, the Proscenic T21 is a great choice, but don't buy it because you want voice control.

Specifications
  • Brand: Proscenic
  • Connectivity: Wi-Fi
  • Weight: 15lbs
  • Capacity: 5.8qt
  • Dimensions: 12 x 12 x 12.7 inches
Pros
  • Larger than average capacity.
  • Results taste great!
  • Remote control from the app, anywhere in the world—or on your sofa.
Cons
  • Quite loud; both the fan when cooking, and the beep when finished.
  • Voice assistant integration is under-developed.
Buy This Product
Proscenic T21 Air Fryer

The Proscenic T21 is a smart air fryer with app remote control and voice assistant integration. You can literally ask it to cook fries for you. But is it a good air fryer, or just a mediocre one with a voice control gimmick?

Spoiler alert: it's rather good. Join me as I eat all the fried things in the name of giving a thorough test.

What Is an Air Fryer, Anyway?

I realize not everyone is as au fait about the latest in haute cuisine technologie, so let's take a moment to explain what an air fryer is. Also known as a "healthy fryer," air fryers don't, in fact, fry anything. Instead, they're more akin to a convection oven. With a fast flow of hot air circulating around the food, air fryers cook quicker and more efficiently than a traditional oven. Some even have a paddle to push the food around (though the Proscenic T21 doesn't).

The result is perfectly crisp food, without the need to dip it in a vat of boiling grease. It's a great compromise between tasty deep-fried food and healthy oven-cooked.

Let's face it: oven fries are an abomination. But put those same oven fries into a healthy grill, and you get something much more akin to fried food—fluffy on the inside, crispy on the outside— but with 85% less fat. There's no excuse to use a deep fat fryer any longer.

I should note that the Proscenic T21 is strictly just an air fryer, not a multi-function cooker like your microwave oven probably is.

The Hardware

The Proscenic T21 is larger than your average air fryer, weighing in at around 15 lbs (7kg) and in a roughly cube-shaped package 12.5 inches (32cm) on each side.

As with all fast cooking appliances, it sucks down electricity, using up to 1700W at the highest temperature. The food basket's capacity is 5.5L (or 5.8 quarts), significantly more than most air fryers. Our last model was a mere 2.2L. This makes the Proscenic T21 more suitable for larger families and opens up the possibilities of cooking a small chicken in there (about 1kg should be fine).

No animals were harmed in the making of this review

To pull the drawer out, junk yank on the handle while holding the main body. There's no physical lock for the drawer, but it can feel a bit stiff if you're not used to it. The translucent cover you see protects the button that locks the basket into the drawer. Once you remove the drawer, you can push back the cover to reveal the release button.

proscenic t21- basket lock button

However, be very careful: either hold the drawer and the handle or, better still, put the whole thing down on a heat-resistant surface. If you press the button without doing that, the drawer will go crashing to the floor. I speak from experience, having broken the handle of our old air fryer within a week of owning it by doing this, so I very much appreciate the fact there's a secure cover on top of this button.

Another outstanding feature on the hardware side is the dual Teflon coating. Both the food basket and the drawer assembly are dishwasher safe. Ours has been through the wash four or five now and shows no sign of degradation. Of course, it's early days yet, but I'd expect signs of wear and tear to develop immediately if it wasn't dishwasher safe.

proscenic t21 basket size 5.5l

You don't need to clean it after every use, of course, and if you want to extend the life of the product, you shouldn't. Most of the time, tipping out the crumbs would be sufficient.

Cooking in The Proscenic T21

Manual operation of the Proscenic T21 is simple. With the basket inserted, press the power button to activate the display and other capacitive buttons. On either side of the main display, you'll see temperature and time buttons. The temperature ranges from 170—400F (77—204C), and you can set the timer for up to 60 minutes. Hit the start button to get cooking!

Alternatively, you can select one of the presets from the top row, consisting of:

  • Fries / chips
  • Shrimp
  • Pizza
  • Drumsticks
  • Fish
  • Steak
  • Cake
  • Bacon

It's an eclectic mix but serves to show the variety of foods you can cook quickly and efficiently in an air fryer. That said, I'm highly unlikely to ever use the cake mode. Not because I don't like cakes, but because those should be cooked in an actual oven.

I'm also not sure how useful the preset modes are given the variation even within those categories. Here in the UK, "chips" can refer to anything from thin french fries to massive chunky wedge-like things; fresh or frozen. Clearly, some types of chips then will take longer to cook than others, but if you don't know what you're doing (which is quite likely if you're relying on those presets in the first place), there's a strong chance you'll end up with something undercooked. That's not a huge problem with chips; but certainly could be for chicken.

As well as presets, you'll find preheat, keep warm, and scheduling features.

Removing the drawer (to inspect or shake the food) automatically pauses the cooking. However, it feels like the air fryer shuts off entirely, which made us think the unit was faulty. Don't worry, though: as soon as you reinsert the drawer, it'll resume cooking at the previous time and settings.

How Does The Food Taste?

Superb. We tried various foods from the famous British food category of "beige-colored," including the built-in presets for french fries, drumsticks, and fish. We used custom programs for spring rolls and homemade potato wedges.

A meal consisting entirely of beige

We used the app to try the Pork Katsu recipe, too.

It all handled them all beautifully: evenly cooked, with no "soggy bottoms." Fries came out crispy on the outside and fluffy in the middle.

prosce3nic t21 potato wedges cooked

In terms of performance as an air fryer, we were suitably impressed.

Web-Connected Cooking

The Proscenic T21 connects to your home Wi-Fi and then to Proscenic's servers, giving you complete remote control of the fryer from the smartphone app. This means you can control it from the sofa, the bed—or even when you're away from home.

I know what you're thinking: a web-connected cooking device–what could possibly go wrong?

Setting this up was smooth and straightforward for me, but I should note that it requires a 2.4Ghz network and won't work with 5Ghz. This shouldn't be a problem for modern dual-band routers, but if you've had issues before with smart home tech, consider creating a separate 2.4Ghz network just for IoT devices.

Once plugged in hold down the power button for a few seconds to activate Wi-Fi ad-hoc mode, and connect to the new Wi-Fi network it'll broadcast. The app will recognize the device, and you can enter your Wi-Fi credentials. The T21 was web-connected within five minutes of taking it out of the box.

The Proscenic Home interface is relatively self-explanatory, giving control of the standard temperature and timer cooking features, scheduling, preheat, and keeping warm modes. Like the buttons on the device, the app also gives you quick access to the presets and allows you to create custom "DIY" presets for your favorite recipes.

Another exciting feature of the app is the recipes tab (separate to the built-in presets). Here, you'll find some ideas and preparation instructions. Once you're ready, hit the cook button, and the Proscenic app will communicate with the device to set the ideal temperature and cooking time for you. That said, it's debatable how useful this feature is when it's only two numbers, after all.

proscenic t21 being used with app to choose recipe

Sadly, I couldn't get notifications to work, which should, in theory, alert you when the food is finished cooking. I'm not sure if this is a bug or omission from the features—it seems like a logical feature to include, and the app does ask for permission to send notifications.

Voice Assistant Integration

Frustration quickly set in once it came to getting the voice assistant part set up. After exporting the device to Alexa, and going through the Google Home device setup, neither was working. I reached out to support, who tweaked something on the server-side, then said "try again", and sure enough, it worked.

The Proscenic app allows you to create a friendly name for your air fryer. We tried "crispy," which confused Google a lot, and then settled on "Christopher." But out of the box, the only thing you can do is turn the device on and off, which isn't particularly useful.

To get access to cooking programs, you need to add the Proscenic Air Fryer Alexa skill. Then, you can say things like "Alexa, ask Proscenic Air Fryer to cook fries" (I should note: the UK version only speaks British English, so I had to ask for "chips").

Unfortunately, the friendly name you chose seemingly can't be used, and asking "proscenic air fryer" to do something is quite a mouthful. And don't ask for "french fries," as it doesn't know what that is. Or "chicken," because it has to be "drumsticks."

Overall, the voice integration is more hassle than it's worth and ultimately very limited. It's impressive when it works, but more often than not, you'll forget the exact preset name, the skill keyword, or your voice assistant will mishear entirely and look up a recipe for you instead.

proscenic t21 in use

This frustration is partly Proscenic's fault for not developing a more elaborate grammar. The skill developers could easily have programmed alternatives for the recipe names, such that "fries," "french fries," or "chips" would all have been acceptable to initiate the first preset recipe.

But it's also the fault of Amazon and Google for not implementing an extendable cooker device class, one that could accept temperature, time, and food names. As it is, voice assistants work great with smart devices that are either simple on/off switches or colored light bulbs. Beyond that, they're a bit rubbish.

So it's early days for this type of voice interaction, and right now, the Proscenic T21 voice features stand as a glimpse at the future, but not an entirely useful one.

Should You Buy The Proscenic T21 Air Fryer?

At $129, I can't fault the Proscenic T21 as an air fryer, though it is priced a little above average compared to other air fryers on the market. If you don't need any smart features and don't have a large family to cook for, a smaller, simpler, (and cheaper!) device would serve you just fine.

proscenic t21 drawer out

I particularly like the little securely locked basket, and the large capacity is fantastic. The tasty results speak for themselves, with even heat distribution and simple operation via the capacitive buttons, or even remote control from the app. The only thing it's really missing is a paddle to push food around, and other multifunction cooking modes like simple grilling.

An air fryer should be a part of every family's kitchen: there's no reason ever to use unhealthy and dangerous deep-fat frying again. For those who need above-average capacity or like the idea of remote controlling their air fryer over Wi-Fi, the Proscenic T21 is a great choice, but don't buy it because you want voice control.