Welcome to the fifty-seventh episode of Access On, the National Federation of the Blind's Technology podcast.
Episode
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Timestamps
Please note that Access On will be taking a short break, and will return for 2026 on January 14.
Here is what you can hear, and when.
- Introduction 0:00
- Interview with Travis rea and Zac Selmon from Brava 1:09
- The Brava app for iOS 31:26
- Cooking steak in the Brava 42:40
Transcript
Speaker 1:
Live life you want.
Speaker 2:
Access on.
Jonathan Mosen:
Seasons greetings from Access On, the technology podcast of the National Federation of the Blind. Our final episode for 2025 takes an in depth look at the Brava Smart Oven. Zach Selman and Travis Ray talk about this intriguing product and how it's accessible to blind people. We'll give you a demo of searching for and reviewing recipes in the Brava app for iOS. And we cook some steak in the Brava oven because of the NFB, we work with all kinds of stakeholders.
It's Jonathan Mosen at the Jernigan Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, welcoming you to Episode 57 of the podcast. And this is the last episode for 2025. We'll be taking a break over the holiday period, but we will be back on January the 14th with another season, and we look forward to bringing you interesting technology news, reviews, and hearing your tips and tricks as well.
On this episode of Access On, we're diving in to a kitchen innovation that might change the way that you cook. The Brava Smart Oven uses pure light cooking technology, which consists of six powerful lamps that deliver precise multi-zone heating. And this means that you can cook a steak, you can roast veggies and crisp potatoes all at once, each to perfection with no preheating necessary.
Thanks to its accessible app, blind users can cook confidently and independently. The app works seamlessly with screen readers like voiceover on iOS and talk back on Android guiding users step by step through recipes, ingredients, prep, and cooking control, all from their smartphone.
Now, someone called me a steak snob recently, and I must confess that is fair, so I'll treat that as a badge of honor. And since we've had the Brava Smart Oven here at the International Braille Technology Center, I have had some of the best steak that I've eaten outside a fancy steakhouse. So, to discuss this technology, I'm joined by Travis Ray and Zach Selman from Brava. Guys, it's good to have you on Access On. Thank you so much. For our listeners who might not be familiar, can we start by just having a brief overview of what Brava is and how it works from your perspective, Zach?
Zach Selman:
Sure. I mean, you did a better job than I can. That was impressive, especially with that silky-smooth radio voice you have. You nailed it there.
Travis Ray:
Yeah, I was going to say the same thing, Zach, that was one of the best and most concise descriptions of Brava I have heard in the last nine years.
Zach Selman:
I was mesmerized.
Jonathan Mosen:
There you go.
Zach Selman:
But honestly, yeah, you totally nailed it. We set out to make cooking at home faster, easier, more delicious for everybody by automating some of the pain points that people have. And as you mentioned with these six powerful heating lamps, what's really cool about them is a combination of how powerful they are and how precise they are, as well as how quickly they can adjust temperatures.
So, when they're running it full power, it's the equivalent of about a 900-degree pizza oven. So, things like searing a steak that you would normally have to do on a stove top or a grill that you can't really do in a traditional oven. It's got that level of power and it can get to that full power in just under a second. So, there's no preheating time. And similarly, when it shuts off, there's minimal residual heat.
So, like a chef at a steak restaurant where they're flipping it on the pan or taking the pan on and off the heat to really control exactly how much energy is going into the surface of the food, we can emulate that by turning the lamps on and off and adjusting that power. And so, that just gives us really fine control over how we're cooking the food.
And then we automate that process like a Waymo automates a driverless car where we use software paired with that really fine control of heat application. And our team of chefs have built out over 9,000 recipes to really optimize exactly how these lamps are cooking your food.
Travis Ray:
You can think of it as a very capable and automated sous chef that sits on your countertop that's ready to cook pretty much anything at any time for you.
Jonathan Mosen:
Travis, how long has Brava been in existence for?
Travis Ray:
We launched it at the tail end of 2018, but I think the idea for Brava really began around 2015 or 2016 with our co-founders.
Zach Selman:
That being said, it's a very different product now than it was when it first launched because there's not really anything out there that cooks this way. We had to relearn how to cook with light and there's a lot of trial and error and growth over time. I think we started with 50 some odd recipes and we're up over 9,500 now. And a lot of those changed dramatically from how we originally approached it. So, it's been something that's grown a lot over the last five, six years.
Jonathan Mosen:
When I've talked to people about Brava, it's such a new concept in terms of the way that it cooks and people are saying, "Well, how safe is it?" There are some people who are a little bit skeptical of microwave ovens, for example. Is this a safe way to cook and then to eat your food?
Zach Selman:
Yeah. It's just radiant heat. It's the same infrared heat that you would get from the sun or from your oven or from a grill. It's just infrared. It's just the lamps that we're using, how efficiently they're converting electricity into infrared and how precise they can be that's unique. And so, cooking with that, it's really like if you had a blow torch that you're turning on and off and adjusting, and it's just not something that people have ever had access to as a tool. So, you haven't really learned cooking techniques to cook that way.
Jonathan Mosen:
What was the catalyst or the motivation for Brava to focus on accessibility for blind people?
Zach Selman:
That's a great question. It's really not something that was on our radar at first. We just set out to make cooking at home faster, easier, safer for everybody. And then it wasn't until a couple years in that we started hearing from folks. I think one of the first times I got introduced to even the term "assistive technology", we started hearing from folks aging in place early on hearing about a couple that had been married 50 years and the wife had cooked every meal until she had a stroke and was unable to. And then they were ordering DoorDash every night until their kids got them and oven.
And then we started doing some work with folks with developmental disabilities, with a lot of folks with autism. And we started to hear that things like the guided cooking, the safety features, the fact that there's no preheat and automatic shutoff. A lot of these things that are great for everyone take on an elevated level of importance for people that have some challenges in the kitchen. And so, we started learning more because we didn't know what we didn't know.
So, we actually went to our first ATIA a few years ago to just learn about the world of assistive technology. And the first thing that we heard from most people there was that this is great and all, but the touchscreen on the top of the oven is not accessible. And actually, at that ATIA, met my now buddy from the Lighthouse in San Francisco, Fernando, and he was the first person to show me how voiceover and talk back worked and gave me a rundown on screen readers and that I realized and started to understand what the possibilities were there and the fact that we could update it and build out that full control into the Brava.
Jonathan Mosen:
One of the things that is interesting about Brava is I enjoy the process of creating the meal because it's geeky. I mean, that's not to say that it's difficult, but it's just a fun technological thing to play with the app and choose your recipe. And we got into this habit of browsing through the recipes, finding something, saying, "That actually looks quite nice." So, that we jump on the Instacart and get the ingredients delivered and we're cooking that evening. So, it's a pretty cool concept. Have you thought though about making the Brava oven itself accessible? Would you ever consider putting text to speech or a talk back-like experience in the oven itself so that it works standalone without the need to use the app?
Zach Selman:
Yes, we definitely have. There's a handful of different considerations there. One, it would be a large software change and not just software, but hardware change. Currently, the tools like voiceover and talk back that are available through the app are just a lot more robust than what we could natively get with this small Linux distribution that we're working with on the hardware right now.
Additionally, the actual hardware that the speaker set that we have on the oven right now isn't great for handling speech. It's like more for beeps and boops and the fidelity's not great for legible speech. So, we've been exploring that down a handful of paths. One, maybe external hardware pairing with smart speakers and maybe an add-on, something like that that could really add additional compute for stuff like that.
Or in future versions, we are exploring different compute modules and speech and onboard kiosk type screen reader applications. It's definitely something that we're thinking about now, whereas we hadn't in the past and evaluating what the options and best practices are going to be. For example, we are very much working on additional input and control methods. So, leveraging all the fun new stuff with AI to be able to have a conversational interaction with the oven so you can just straight up talk to it and it can ask you followup questions and understand the context.
Jonathan Mosen:
Right. Because one of the challenges at the moment is that once you get your Brava Smart Oven and you've got it plugged in and everything. If you're a blind person, you're not going to be able to get that up and running right now connected to WiFi, logged into your Brava account, which you need. So, there are some steps in the current iteration where you're going to require cited assistance just to get started.
Zach Selman:
Yup. And I hate that. And the process is right now, because again, we didn't plan this. We didn't know about the accessibility when we first started. Actually, when we first started, there wasn't even really the ability to control anything from the oven. We started off with the app only being an ordering tool because we had a meal kit associated with it.
So, that's how little that connection to the oven happened when we first started building the ovens and got the software flashed onto the initial ovens. So, it does require logging into the WiFi with the keyboard on the touchscreen of the oven. Now that we know, we're definitely working on ways to try to make that a smoother process now and really clean and fully app controlled in the future.
Travis Ray:
I think it's cool to note though, Jonathan, one thing that we did as we made the app more accessible, that Zach was mentioning, we made the app much more robust than before. And that was directly because of the feedback from the assistive technology community that we even did that in the first place. You could search for a recipe on Brava's app and you could send it from the app to the oven, but you would still have to go up to the touchscreen to enter parameter information.
If you wanted to make a grilled cheese even a year ago, you could find the grilled cheese recipe, you could send it to the oven, but you would still have to go to the touchscreen to enter what kind of bread and how many sandwiches you were going to make. But when we made the oven set up on the app fully accessible, I think that made the experience for every Brava user, regardless of whether they are sighted or not, a better experience because even sighted people now can do that full oven setup. But I don't think we would have done that necessarily if we hadn't gotten the feedback from the blind and low vision community that it was something that we should get.
Zach Selman:
I actually personally use it, do it through the app every time now. It's a cleaner, simpler experience for me. That's how I use it now. So, it's funny. I didn't expect it.
Jonathan Mosen:
There's input and there's output. So, obviously now you can send a recipe, you can browse for something that you would like to eat. You can then send that recipe to the Brava oven and that's all ready to go. And then you press the physical button that's on the device. What about output from the oven, are you also able to get information as a blind person about what the oven's doing, if it tells you something like that it's time to flip a protein that you're cooking or something, you're getting that information as well?
Zach Selman:
Yes. Even before, we actually have a camera in the oven that was, whenever the oven's turned on is streaming a video feed of what's inside the oven and has a progress bar and all of that kind of stuff. Then we had a series of notifications and alerts. So, if there was a pause step or an error in the past. It would pop up on the app and alert you to check the oven and all that lived on the oven screen.
Since we started to push the control to the oven, the goal is to move all of that information onto that active cook screen. And I think you ran into a problem, I'm digging into that bug right now. We've moved everything over. We're still finding some situations like the one that you ran into where on certain recipes or certain trigger conditions because of specific error state or something that might get hung up in the transition.
Some of it is also user experience mismanagement where the message might be in the app, but it's not being brought to the front as cleanly as it should be. So, it's not obvious to the end user. And that's something that now that we're getting more users playing with it and giving us this feedback like you, thank you very much, we're actively cleaning that up and trying to improve and trying to tweak it and continuing to get all of that stuff as clean as possible. The goal is definitely to have all of the information, all of the functionality fully reflected on the app as well.
Jonathan Mosen:
Can you navigate away from the app and do something else and receive a push notification outside the app? Or are you best to stay in the app while you're clicking?
Zach Selman:
You should have the option for both. So, the app will send notifications for a subset of things and you can actually control some of which notifications that you'll get if you want to for how granular, but you can leave the app and you can also go back in and click into that status screen, like I mentioned earlier, and should be able to get progress information and all that other stuff. If there's anything that actually requires your input, you should get a push notification as well as the ability to pull open the app and just monitor it if you want to.
Jonathan Mosen:
One of the things I should mention as well is that there is the potential for this smart oven to replace perhaps some of the other appliances that you have. And this is something that I haven't personally played with yet in our evaluations here, but now that I have one at home, I almost certainly will. For example, if you have recipes that refer to using an air fryer or any number of other devices, then you can put Brava in a mode that will allow you to work with that sort of recipe, right?
Travis Ray:
Yes. It's got 10 manual modes on it. So, Zach was referring to the 9,500 recipe programs. Those are all the fully automated "self-driving" recipe programs, but the 10 manual modes really will replace a lot of different appliances in your kitchen. It can toast just like a toaster oven. It can reheat. It reheats with different technology than a microwave, and it reheats some things way better than a microwave. Things like slice of pizza or even like cold French fries can be reheated in a matter of minutes and come back to be really, really crispy, which you would never be able to do in a microwave.
Brava can also bake just like a regular oven. So, even though we have the ability to heat in a non-uniform way, with Brava, which is unique, Brava can. We can run the lamps in a way where they work just like heater coils and do heat the chamber uniformly. So, you can bake, you can air fry, you can dehydrate, and then you can even do things like slow cook and rice cook in Brava using our chef's pans. So, yeah, it effectively can replace a slow cooker, in some cases, a microwave, a toaster oven, an air fryer, and a dehydrator.
Zach Selman:
And then with the sear, the sear's like an on-demand power broiler or like a stove top. In terms of what it can cook by combining and mixing, matching these different things, you can pretty much cook anything that you would cook on a stove top or oven or grill. It's really versatile in terms of the types of foods and techniques that you can do with it.
You can make poached eggs, for example, which is awesome. The poached eggs are super easy. If you have the egg tray, it does require one of the extra accessories, but it's just you crack an egg into a little cup and put a couple tablespoons of water and it takes about four minutes and you don't have to deal with boiling water and stirring it in and all the other finicky bits of making poached eggs traditionally and they're really good.
Jonathan Mosen:
Yeah. I actually came across a few omelet recipes and I was really excited about that and I'm looking forward to trying that and see how it works.
Travis Ray:
Funny story behind that one. Funny story behind the omelet recipe, Jonathan. So, Zach, how do I say this the best way? Zach has a very imaginative and creative mind and I used to cook professionally. And so, I would say that I have these ideas about how things should be done that are pretty rigid. And Zach walked up to me in the office one day and said, "Hey, do you think we can do an omelet?" And I said, "Absolutely not." That is no, because an omelet requires agitation and all these things. And Brava is at its core, a set it and forget it kind of device. And so, I said, "No, it's impossible."
And a couple of days later, he came back and he said, "I created an omelet. Here's the custom cook code." And sure enough, it's not how I would've thought of an omelet, but it works. And what you do is you scramble eggs and you pour them into the chef pan and you slide the chef pan into the oven and you push the button.
Zach Selman:
Square pan.
Travis Ray:
Oh, sorry. Square pan. Yeah. Thank you. Sorry. Apologies. And then Brava stops at about three minutes and it asks you to put your fillings on one side of the omelet. And so, you can put cheese or sausage anything you want. And then you put it back in for another minute and it melts the cheese and everything. And as you roll the omelet out of the pan, it folds in on itself. So, it was a really unique and creative way to do an omelet that's almost hands-free. It's pretty awesome. And we ended up launching it as a Brava recipe and it was very, very well liked. So, I have to eat my words sometimes.
Jonathan Mosen:
Not as tasty as eating the omelet, I'm sure.
Zach Selman:
What's cool about that though, Jonathan, that we hadn't talked about yet is that, so we mentioned the manual modes and I built that with basically one or maybe two manual modes, the reheat and the sear. And you can just add a little time and preheat it and trial and error it. And what I did with it is I built, he mentioned a custom cook. That's the way that our users can save out their own recipes.
And it's a modular system where you can mix and match either building from our existing recipes or using the manual modes and say like, "Reheat for three minutes and then sear the top for one minute and then rest for a minute and then reheat for one minute." Whatever steps that you want and you can just program those in and then save them so that they run at a push of a button the next time so that once you've figured out how you want to do something or you've customized it to get the exact results the way you like it, you can save that so it's easy to get to the next time.
And then we actually have a community of people where they can share their own recipes. So, we have other users that are figuring out how to do things that we never would've thought of and are sharing them with the community and just pushing the boundaries of what we thought we could do with these lamps.
Jonathan Mosen:
Yeah. The social aspect of it's fun, just looking at people's comments and the different things that they've created. And I don't know whether I will ever have the confidence to try and inflict my recipes on the social media, but you never know. So, I want to clarify, if you get, let's say, one of those meal delivery services, the meal delivery service that delivers fresh meals-
Zach Selman:
Like Blue Apron or something.
Jonathan Mosen:
Yeah. Once a week. And they have two forms of instructions. They have the microwaving instructions and they have the oven instructions. Which one should you use to heat something like that in the Brava?
Zach Selman:
Well, so that's a great question. The oven will take longer like an oven will. So, the reheat is great. I would normally reheat because it'll be fast. The challenge there is that until you've done a little bit of trial and error, the reheat is one of the Brava only modes, whereas the others, like our bake is basically an emulation of a traditional oven.
So, if you have a recipe that says bake at 400, you'll get the same results by using Brava bake at 400. The Brava reheat is fast like a microwave, but it's not one to one. So, if it says to microwave at a minute 30, it might be two minutes 30 or three minutes in the microwave. So, it'll be fast and you'll get good results, but it has a little bit of a learning curve in terms of getting that sense of the power level.
Once you've done it for a while, you have a pretty good innate conversion. And like a microwave, it depends on how much food you're putting in there and what kind and all that other kind of stuff. But the reheat is super versatile once you play with it. And it's easy because like a microwave, just there's no preheating. It's just add 30 seconds, add 30 seconds and touch it, taste it, and do it that way.
Travis Ray:
Really depends on the meal too, Jonathan. And a lot of those meal kits like Blue Apron require multiple different pans and techniques. And a lot of those things you can do in Brava with one go, but it would depend on the ingredients and what they were asking you to do. But I agree with Zach, if it was a simple just like pop it in the oven, you would use the oven, you're just the bake mode for Brava.
Jonathan Mosen:
One of the things I think would be quite helpful for a blind audience who might be considering this and maybe make the purchase is to talk a little bit about the temperature sensor, what that's for, what benefit it has, but also how you use it effectively. And it will be great to get a good verbal description of how to insert that temperature sensor and how to manage it.
Zach Selman:
So, the temp sensor is something that's interesting. We started off using it for all the proteins basically to guarantee the exact doneness and precise cooking. It works like any traditional temp probe where you are going to insert it all the way into the thickest part of the protein that you're trying to cook.
The best practices for the Brava, just because of the nature of the lamps and the safety of the temp probe is that you want to try to insert it into the thickest part of the meat horizontal to the tray and the lamps because you don't want the top of the probe popping up into the lamps or down and touching the tray just because you don't want to fry the temp sensor. But generally, that's how it is. Just horizontally into the thickest part of the meat and you're good to go. Just insert it all the way.
The interesting thing about the temp sensor is originally, we required it for all protein cooks, but after about a year or two, because we had the telemetry data of all these millions of cooks that had happened and we could track it in the rise of the temperature based on all of the cooks and all the temp sensor data that we had across that, we were able to rebuild recipes that allowed for just time-based cooking where we could really get consistent, really good results without needing to use the temp sensor.
So, now for a lot of the recipes, we give people the option. Basically, if you want to have really fine control to guarantee that it's getting pulled at exactly the right temp, you can do that. I personally very rarely do that because I trust our time-based cooks so much now, but it's good to have the option.
Jonathan Mosen:
There is only one temperature sense of socket in the oven. So, if you wanted to cook a couple of steaks and make sure that they're both medium rare, what do you do in that situation where there is only room for one temperature sensor?
Zach Selman:
Great question. Generally, it's like you would do it on the grill. So, the best practice is to take the slightly larger, or if you're cooking for two different people and one person wants it a little bit more done, you select the one that you want and handle it that way and trust that they're going to be getting cooked similarly.
We actually have a wireless version of the temp sensor. We haven't released this yet, but I've played around with it in the lab. Conceivably, we could set it up so you could use two different temp sensors in two different zones and cook one steak to well done and one steak to medium rare at the same time, but it's overboard. And so, we haven't released it, but it's theoretically possible.
Jonathan Mosen:
Or if you use the time cooking option, which is actually really good in my experience, it does a good job, then that wouldn't be an issue, would it? Because it doesn't require that temp sensor.
Zach Selman:
Exactly. I mean, it's going to get cooked well for both of them as long as you're ... The exception would be if you had different types of steaks or dramatically different sized steaks. So, if you were doing two pieces of filet mignon and one of them was a two-inch monster and one is half piece at a half inch, those obviously are not going to cook in the same way.
Jonathan Mosen:
So, this has been really fascinating. What sort of support is available by email or telephone for somebody who thinks this is worth a shot? And there is a return policy too, correct?
Zach Selman:
There is, yes. Thirty-day returns, we've got Hello, it's [email protected]?
Jonathan Mosen:
Yeah, I think it is.
Zach Selman:
[email protected]. We do have a phone number as well. Travis and I are always around. We've got a great customer support team. They're all super friendly and Travis and I are always around. They forward things to us all the time if people want to get into deeper conversations, especially about things like accessibility. I actually really encourage that because these types of questions and feedback is how we make it better. So, I love hearing from people and fielding those questions.
Jonathan Mosen:
And can we just talk pricing before we go? What does it cost to get into this ecosystem?
Travis Ray:
The regular price Brava starter set runs for 1,295. The bacon breakfast, which includes more accessories is 1,495 and the chef's choice is 1,695. We created an exclusive discount for your audience to get 200 dollars off of Brava. And so, they can either enter the code NFB200 at checkout, or Jonathan, I'm going to email you the link so you can include it in the show notes, but it's pretty simple. It's just shock.Brava.com/discount/nfb200. So, you can drop that code in the show notes, but if they enter the code NFB200 at checkout, they'll get 200 dollars off of any Brava set.
Jonathan Mosen:
It has been a real pleasure to talk with you guys. And thank you so much for sending one to us here at the Jernigan Institute. It has been a really interesting product to get to know. It has a lot of potential. And I mean, the bottom line is it really makes incredibly good tasty food. So, it's quite a cool piece of technology.
Zach Selman:
Also, I would say for your audience, we know that Brava is not inexpensive. And so, depending on where your audience lives, a lot of states have both state and federal support through grants and waiver programs. So, your audience should definitely reach out to the assistive technology providers in their area and ask for Brava and have them contact us because we can get in touch with them and get them set up as a provider.
Jonathan Mosen:
Well, thanks to Brava for providing that code that is NFB200 at checkout if you would like to avail yourself of that discount. We're going to take a quick break and when we come back, we'll have a look at the accessibility of the Brava app.
Speaker 6:
The PAC plan is our pre-authorized contribution plan. This is a way for anyone to make contributions to our organization on an ongoing basis. And that ongoing basis enables us to be able to budget for the money that's coming up. Anyone who wants to contribute to the plan for the first time or who wants to up their contribution, just share with us some financial information. It can either be a debit card or a bank account and routing number, and we will make sure that your generous donation is processed each month.
There are two ways that you can do this. One, you can go to nfb.org/pac, that's P-A-C. You can also give us a call at 1-877-NFB, the number two pack. That's 1-877-632-2722. Leave a message that does not contain financial information, but that contains your contact info, and one of our folks will call you back.
Jonathan Mosen:
Oh, since it's the holiday time, should I sing the song? No, I won't sing the song. I won't inflict it on you, but you can sing the song for yourself. Before we get cooking, let's explore the Brava app because one of the things that you can do is go through the recipes. There are many, many recipes in the Brava app and find something that takes you fancy. You may need then to purchase the ingredients.
So, it's a fun exercise to think, "Well, what might I feel like for dinner this evening?" And then you can ensure you have the ingredients required of you. So, I am in the Brava app now and I'm on the home screen. And if I go to the top of that screen.
Speaker 7:
Go to shop.brava.com.
Jonathan Mosen:
You can buy Brava related items from there. I'll flick right.
Speaker 7:
Go to cook functions.
Jonathan Mosen:
This allows you to use your Brava Smart Oven in conventional ways. If I double tap this and now flick right.
Speaker 7:
Select program. Heading. Cooking functions. Bake, sear, reheat, air fry, slow cook, dehydrate, keep warm, pro cook, cook, toast, rice cook.
Jonathan Mosen:
When you choose any of these functions, it will emulate a traditional item of that kind. So, if I move back to air fryer, for example.
Speaker 7:
Toast, cook, pro cook, keep warm, dehydrate, slow cook, air fry.
Jonathan Mosen:
And double tap.
Speaker 7:
Air fry.
Jonathan Mosen:
You have options that are typical of any air fryer.
Speaker 7:
Temperature, 350F. Time, 20 minutes, zero, zero second. Add new step. Create the recipe. Send to Brava.
Zach Selman:
So, if you want to use the Brava Smart Oven as a traditional air fryer and you have a recipe that tells you to set the temperature in time for certain amounts, you can do that and use the appropriate utensils to get the cook result that you want. So, potentially this device may replace other items in your kitchen that you already have.
I'm going to go back to the previous screen. Sometimes in the app, the two-finger scrub gesture, which is typical of an accessible iOS app to go to the preceding screen works and sometimes it doesn't. On this screen, it doesn't seem to, so I'll go to the top of the screen and double tap the back button.
Speaker 7:
Go back. Go to shop.brava.com.
Jonathan Mosen:
Now we're back on the previous screen. We'll continue to explore it.
Speaker 7:
Go to cook functions. Brava logo. Feature item, peanut butter cookies by Brava Chef Travis. Recipe V3. A stack of cookies on the white plate.
Jonathan Mosen:
This screen will change regularly and it has featured recipes of the moment. I'll continue to show you what is here as I record this in late December.
Speaker 7:
What's new category section? Apple pie with streusel topping. One of 10. Adjustable.
Jonathan Mosen:
These are new recipes that have been added. And when you get a control like this in the iOS app, you can flick up to go through the what's new items.
Speaker 7:
Fall salad with crispy bacon and green apples. Two of 10. Pumpkin pie. Three of 10.
Jonathan Mosen:
And so on. I'll flick right.
Speaker 7:
Fresh eating category section. Lunchbox frittatas. One of 10. Adjustable.
Jonathan Mosen:
That's a similar control so you can flick up to explore that category.
Speaker 7:
Accessory spotlight. Muffin 10 category section. Slow cooked egg bites. One of getting started category section. The wireless temp sensor. One of nine.
Jonathan Mosen:
There is plenty of documentation including video tutorials. There was one that I found that was very helpful, a 40-minute video tutorial that was an introduction to Brava, and that's available in their YouTube channel and it's probably available in the app as well.
Speaker 7:
How-to videos category section. How to cook protein without the temp sensor. One of six. Adjustable. Recipe tutorials category section. Bolognese sauce tutorial video. One of 10. Adjustable seasonal ingredients category section. Apples. One of 10. Seasonings category section. Brava taco seasoning. One of eight. Tips and tricks category section. Brava quick start guide. One of six.
Jonathan Mosen:
So, that's the first screen. That's the home screen. It is pretty dynamic. You'll see new content appearing there regularly if you want to check it out. Now we're at the tabs at the bottom of the app and these are accessible. They speak well. Let's review them.
Speaker 7:
Selected. Home. Tab, one of four. Search. Button. Tab, two of four. Button. Bookmarks. Tab, three of four. Button. Profile. Tab, four of four. Button.
Jonathan Mosen:
In this case, I'm interested in searching for steak recipes. I have brought in quite a bit of steak to the Jernigan Institute today, and it's my ambition to cook some steak for Kennedy and Charles from the NFB's senior team who are on site today. So, I'm going to flip back.
Speaker 7:
Bookmarks. Tab, search. Tab, two of four.
Jonathan Mosen:
And go to the search tab.
Speaker 7:
Selected. Brava recipes, Brava recipes. Tab.
Jonathan Mosen:
This is a well-organized screen. Currently, we can search Brava recipes, but there are other categories as well.
Speaker 7:
Custom cooks, custom cooks. Tab.
Jonathan Mosen:
Custom cooks are where you've created your own recipe and either you've saved it for yourself or you may have chosen to share it with the community. There's a social media element to this. So, it's interesting looking at other people's custom cooks, people who are far more inventive in the kitchen than I. And you might get some really nice recipes out of the custom cooks.
Speaker 7:
Search Brava recipes. Text field.
Jonathan Mosen:
I won't show you this whole screen because there are many options and it's quite busy, but it's all accessible. And one of the options you do have is to drill down by diet choice. So, I historically in the last few years have tried to eat keto. I've been a bit off the wagon since I got to the United States and I'm trying to get back on it over the new year period. And so, if you want to, you can choose low carb or keto recipes and it will just show you those. In this case though, I'm going to double tap the edit field.
Speaker 7:
Keyboard visible.
Jonathan Mosen:
And I'm going to invoke Braille screen input.
Speaker 7:
Braille screen input.
Jonathan Mosen:
And I'm going to type steak. Now let's see what we have.
Speaker 7:
Stopping Braille screen input. Filter. Steaks. Flank steak preset. Skirt steak preset. Ribeye steak preset.
Jonathan Mosen:
That will do. It's a ribeye steak preset and it happens to be ribeye that I have brought into the Jernigan Institute today and it's currently sitting in the fridge. I'm going to double tap ribeye.
Speaker 7:
Ribeye steak preset. Preset ribeye steak one.
Jonathan Mosen:
I'm going to flick right.
Speaker 7:
Ribeye steak. Ribeye. QTY1. Selected. One additional options available.
Jonathan Mosen:
How many steaks are we going to cook? I want to cook a second one actually, so I'll flick up.
Speaker 7:
Ribeye QTY2.
Jonathan Mosen:
Now we've gone to two steaks and I can flick right.
Speaker 7:
Thickness. Small. 1.25. Selected. Two additional options available.
Jonathan Mosen:
I'm not going to set this right now because I want to get my hands on the steak and seek some advice before I set this.
Speaker 7:
Doneness. Medium rare selected. Four additional options available.
Jonathan Mosen:
And we can flick up and down.
Speaker 7:
Medium rare. Medium. Medium well. Well done. Time-based cook. Activate. Medium rare. Selected.
Jonathan Mosen:
Most of those I think are self-explanatory. If you choose a level of what they call doneness, I'm not sure that that is a word, but Brava says it is, so we'll just go with doneness for now, and I won't be a curmudgeon about the grammar. Then you will use the temperature sensor, which we'll talk about when we get into the kitchen and it will cook to that level of "doneness". If you choose time cook, then it's going to allow you to set a period of time to cook the steak based on your best estimate.
Speaker 7:
Active time, five, 10 minutes total time, 15, 36 minutes.
Jonathan Mosen:
That is going to update in real time depending on the level of doneness that you have selected.
Speaker 7:
Ingredients one ribeye, salt, pepper.
Jonathan Mosen:
That's a pretty simple recipe. You got a bit of salt and pepper and you've got the ribeye and that's all you need to chuck this in the Brava and get a delicious steak. I'll continue to flick right.
Speaker 7:
Equipment metal tray.
Jonathan Mosen:
This is very helpful because if you're going to purchase a Brava with a lot of accessories, this will tell you which of the accessories to use. And in this case, it's telling you use the metal tray. Instructions.
Speaker 7:
Instructions. Instruction one of two. One. Prepped steak. Steak should be very cold. Ideal starting temperature is 35 degrees F. Do not let steak sit at room temperature before cooking. Flat steak dry with paper towels. Season both sides with salt and pepper. Place steak in zone two of metal tray. Slide metal tray into bottom shelf and follow instructions. Note. It will flip steak and insert temp sensor after five minutes. If using the time-based cook option, you will not need to use the temp sensor. Adjustable.
Jonathan Mosen:
That's the first set of instructions and you'll note that it tells us to put the steak in zone two. It is really important when you're using this device to put the item of food in the zone that it tells you to, because it's optimizing the lamp for what it is cooking. So, if you put the steak in a different zone, then you're not going to get the outcome you want. I'll flick up for the second instruction.
Speaker 7:
Instruction two of two. One. Flip steaks and insert temp sensor. Once Brava notifies you, carefully remove metal tray. Flip steak. After plugging a temp sensor, insert it horizontally through center of steak. Slide metal tray into bottom shelf. Press green button to continue cooking. When done, slice within two-three minutes to maintain preferred doneness.
Jonathan Mosen:
I find this very helpful because it allows you to know what to expect before you actually get on with the cooking process. So, that's the two instructions that they offer and I'll flick right.
Speaker 7:
Metal tray bottom. Place ribeye on zone two. Place the metal tray on the lower shelf and close the door. Press the green button to start cooking. A black device with a green screen and white text. Possible text. Three. Ribeye. One. Edit. View all comments. One.
Jonathan Mosen:
Since there is a social media element to all of this, you can read comments from people who have used this recipe before and they may tell you that they really like it or they may give you a bit of additional advice.
Speaker 7:
Send it to Brava. Button.
Jonathan Mosen:
When we are in the kitchen, we will then send this recipe to the Brava and we'll be ready to go to cook our steak. We will head upstairs and do just that after this.
Speaker 1:
Do you want to leave a legacy for the next generation? Join the National Federation of the Blind Legacy Society, the Dream Makers Circle. Joining is easy. You can give a portion of a bank or investment account by simply filling out a payable on death form at your bank and indicating the NFB should receive a percentage or a fixed amount upon your passing. Consider designating the NFB as a partial beneficiary of your life insurance, retirement, or in a trust or will. For more information, call Patti Chang at extension 2422 or email PChang, P-C-H-A-N-G at N-F-B dot O-R-G.
Jonathan Mosen:
By the magic of audio, we are now catapulted to the kitchen, the Jernigan Institute and the lunchroom. And we have the Brava Smart Oven here. And what has happened as we unpack the steak is that we found we have some New York strip steaks, and that's what we're going to go with because the ribeye steak that I have has the bone in and it's a really big piece and it's probably more than we can bear. So, Kennedy Zimnik is with me for this exercise. Have you had a good 2025?
Kennedy Zimnik:
Yes. Great 2025. Excited for 2026 and excited to eat some steak too.
Jonathan Mosen:
Yes. Exactly. So, this Brava oven here, what is it? It's quite a small device. It's smaller than I would've perceived it.
Kennedy Zimnik:
Yeah. It's a small to medium size. It's about one and a half feet wide, maybe a foot tall, and then about two feet deep. It has the door on the front. We have the solid door. There's a glass door attachment that you can put on this thing. It has a rubber top, so you can set things down and not be worried about scratching up your oven. And then it has a screen on the top front portion that you can visually see what's going on. But as everybody knows, there's no on-screen screen reader or anything. And then there is a somewhat tactile button to the right of this screen, the top right. And this is your power button.
Jonathan Mosen:
Right.
Kennedy Zimnik:
And then it also asks you sometimes to press it to get started. It's just the one button that you do have to use sometimes.
Jonathan Mosen:
We are going to have a look at this recipe for New York strip steak.
Speaker 7:
Carrots and NY strip steak preset.
Jonathan Mosen:
We are recording this with the Zoom H6 studio at this point using its microphone that comes with it. So, you're getting a stereo image of the room. I know that the recording geeks always like to know what we're using. Let me double tap on this.
Speaker 7:
NY strip steak preset. Go back. But reset NY strip steak. Thickness. That wanted thickness. Thin, five, nine, six-eight ounces. Small, one, 1.25, 8-12 ounces.
Jonathan Mosen:
So, it'd be about that one, right, a small stake?
Kennedy Zimnik:
Yes.
Jonathan Mosen:
Eight to 12 ounces.
Kennedy Zimnik:
Yes.
Jonathan Mosen:
Okay. So, now we'll flick right.
Speaker 7:
Quantity. One steak selected, one additional options available. Active time. Five, 10 minutes total time, 13, 18 minutes. Ingredients, one NY trip state. Equipment. Metal tray.
Jonathan Mosen:
All right. So, that's the first useful bit of information here. We need the metal tray. We have various implements here, right?
Kennedy Zimnik:
Yeah. Let me get a little bit more situated with that. The metal tray might be in the oven already. Yup. It's already in there.
Jonathan Mosen:
So, if I look at the metal tray, it has the different zones, right?
Kennedy Zimnik:
Yes.
Jonathan Mosen:
And it has the zones are in raised front. Zone one is the big one?
Kennedy Zimnik:
Zone one's on the bottom and then two and then three. And there's no actual lines. It just has the raised print and that's it. So, I think it's an estimation.
Jonathan Mosen:
Right. So, this part here from the line at the bottom until there is zone one.
Kennedy Zimnik:
Correct.
Jonathan Mosen:
And that is a number two, correct?
Kennedy Zimnik:
Yes, yeah.
Jonathan Mosen:
And then number three.
Speaker 7:
Instruction. Instruction one of three. One. Prepare NY strip steak. Patch steak dry with paper towels. Season both sides with salt. Adjustable. Instruction two of three. One. If using the temp sensor, place an indicated zone to indicated tray. Test. After plugging a temp sensor, insert it horizontally through center of steak. When done, slice within two-three minutes to maintain preferred doneness. Instruction three of three. One. If using time-based cooking, place an indicated zones of indicated tray. Test. Metal tray bottom. Please NY strip steak on zones two. Dot. Place the metal tray on the lower shelf and close the door. Press the green button to start cooking.
Jonathan Mosen:
So, once it on zone two.
Kennedy Zimnik:
Okay. Do you want to do it or do you want me to?
Jonathan Mosen:
Sure. I'll do it. Yeah.
Kennedy Zimnik:
So, it's open to the right over here.
Jonathan Mosen:
All right. Oh, there we go.
Kennedy Zimnik:
There you go.
Jonathan Mosen:
Yeah. Okay. So, there's an actual, but now we have it in the lower level. So, now we can shut the door.
Speaker 7:
Send it to Brava.
Jonathan Mosen:
So, if I send to Brava...
Speaker 7:
Send it to Brava. Code with send it to Brava.
Kennedy Zimnik:
And on the screen, visually, I now see New York strip steak, 754. Press green button to start cook. It shows thickness, thin, and quantity one steak.
Jonathan Mosen:
Okay. So, now we'll push the button.
Speaker 7:
NY strip steak. NY strip steak. Build a recipe. Pause cook, 9-19M, 94/120 degrees F. Close Brava view screen. Button.
Jonathan Mosen:
So, now we are in the Brava view screen. It's like the now playing screen in a music app. So, it's showing on the home tab and I double tapped it and now I can flick to the right.
Speaker 7:
Cooking NY strip steak. Heading, 445. 103/120 degrees F. 9-19M. Pause, cook. Go the recipe. 5:17, 5:19.
Jonathan Mosen:
Okay. So, that's the elapsed time.
Speaker 7:
Cooking NY strip steak. Close Brava cook at 5:26. Psuse 9-19M. 113/120 degrees F 9-19M.
Jonathan Mosen:
Is that the total time that it's going to take?
Kennedy Zimnik:
I think. Okay. Complete at 8:03.
Jonathan Mosen:
Okay.
Kennedy Zimnik:
Okay. Done, I guess.
Speaker 7:
126, close Brava and cook complete.
Jonathan Mosen:
Jolly good steak, it was too. Jolly good steak. If you want to find out more about the Brava Smart Oven, you can visit Brava.com. That's B-R-A-V-A dot com. And that wraps up Access On for 2025. It only remains for me to wish you the happiest of holiday seasons. I hope you get a chance to recharge not just your devices, but yourself as well. Ready for a busy 2026.
It's going to be a very different Christmas for me in the Northern Hemisphere, normally I am used to warm weather and Christmas on the beach and all of those things. It's not happening here this year. All those songs that I grew up with about snow and Christmas and wintertime suddenly are very real, and that's very exciting.
I look forward to being back with you in 2026. Our first publication of Access On will be January the 14th and we're going to begin an exciting series on multi-line Braille. We'll see you then. Take care of yourself.
That concludes this episode of Access On, the Technology Podcast of the National Federation of the Blind. To send in a contribution for a future episode, email us, attach an audio clip or just write it down and send it to [email protected]. That's [email protected].
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To learn more about the National Federation of the Blind, visit our website, NFB.org or phone us 410-659-9314. That's 410-659-9314, and be sure to check out the Nation's Blind Podcast right from where you heard this podcast.