We all know how incredibly difficult it can be to microwave something: You actually have to look on the back of the TV dinner to see how many minutes and at what power level it takes to cook it. But the Beyond Microwave leaps to the rescue!

What makes this “smart” microwave oven different from the typical everyday microwave is its built-in barcode wand. You can now scan the barcode of any microwaveable product and the oven will determine its appropriate time and power settings. It couldn’t be simpler in concept. But this begs the question: Aren’t the directions we use to microwave food already simple enough?
 
In reality, the Beyond Microwave’s barcode reading wasn’t as simple as the good ol’ fashioned technique of eyeballing the instructions. In our attempts, it took several passes for the microwave to detect the barcode. For instance, we had a package of Quaker Instant Oatmeal. The barcode is located on the back of the package just a few inches below the actual directions. After pulling the barcode wand from the microwave, we tried to scan the barcode on the box. First pass: nothing. Second pass: nothing. Third pass: that’s it. The time 1:15 appears on the microwave screen and we are ready to heat. It just would have been easier to look on the back of the box and read the cooking time of 1-2 minutes. This is definitely not a convenience when entering the time manually is faster than the gimmick associated with the product. To be fair, it did work fine on other products once we honed our wand-waving skills.
 
It does have some cool features, too. With over 4,000 barcodes already loaded into memory, it also has the ability to download new product barcodes off the Internet. This makes sense if new products become available, so the oven will not become obsolete soon after you buy it. And the one stellar feature of this microwave is that it cooks popcorn perfectly. So at least you’ll never burn popcorn again.