I ditched my Ninja for this AI smart air fryer

My air fryer is one of the most-used pieces of equipment in my kitchen. My husband and I are often too tired to cook after a day at work but still want to eat something healthy and quick to prepare.

I’ve tested countless machines over the years, all of which promise to revolutionise the way I cook my meals, and as a Ninja fan girl I thought I’d found the best one, until the Daewoo Actuate Smart air fryer landed on my doorstep. It is currently on sale for just £79 on Amazon, down from its original price of £119.

While it may look like a standard single-drawer air fryer when you take it out of the box, it actually uses AI to take the guesswork out of cooking, I know it sounds gimmicky but the results took me by surprise.

So how does an air fryer use AI? The machine has an internal camera that recognises 12 foods – including the most commonly cooked items in an air fryer such as chips, chicken, sausages, vegetables and fish fingers. It weighs and measures the amount before automatically adjusting the cook time and temperature. Aside from that, it can be used like any other air fryer. 

I use an air fryer for lots of everyday meals; the likes of roasted veg, chicken thighs, chips or roast potatoes, which are cooked with less oil and more quickly than in my oven. They are also great for reheating left-overs (if you’ve never used an air fryer to reheat a slice or two of pizza, I suggest you give it a go).

I was intrigued to how the Daewoo would cope with our day-to-day demands and whether the technology was genuinely useful and accurate. 

I tested this air fryer with one of our most-often cooked foods: chips, both frozen and homemade. For the frozen ones, I just poured in the amount we needed, closed the drawer and then selected the AI button. This took a photo of the food to determine how long it would take to cook and started the cooking process. To my surprise this worked really well, the chips came out perfectly cooked and didn’t need any extra time on the clock. 

For the homemade ones, I parboiled them first and used a bit of spray oil and some salt, something I’d always do with an airfryer unless it has a steam airfry mode like the Ninja as otherwise they can take too long to cook on the inside, resulting in a hard, burnt outside. Again, I selected the chips function and it recognised the difference between frozen and hand-cut (I suspect that this is down to the weighing and measuring function). 

There’s a viewing window to the front and an internal light so that you can keep an eye on your food without having to keep opening and closing the door, letting out the heat. The LCD touch screen was surprisingly simple to use and made selecting the mode and adjusting the settings manually very straightforward. 

Both style of chips turned out really well; they were crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. The homemade chips did brown a lot faster than the oven chips, which is perfect for me as I don’t like an anaemic chip, but that is something to keep an eye on if you prefer them softer. The time and temperature that the air fryer selected worked perfectly first time for both items without the need for me to manually adjust any of the settings. 

In my opinion, this air fryer outperformed the Ninja air fryer I have because all the chips were cooked evenly, and it also cooked them, especially the homemade, a lot quicker than the Ninja, despite the temperature limit only reaching 200ºC on the Daewoo. 

While the AI tool can only detect 12 food types, you can adjust the air fryer so you manually select the time and weight, meaning as with any other air fryer, there’s very little that you can’t cook in it.

Plus, if the AI does get it wrong, you can cycle through the list of foods manually and select what you’re cooking. During my testing, the only time that it struggled was when I cooked chicken with a sauce, it couldn’t quite distinguish what the meat was in among, but it was super quick and easy just to select chicken and it still cooked it perfectly first time.

There is a “shake” reminder, sends out an alert when it’s time to remove the basket and shake your food around. This doesn’t just sound at the half way point like some other air fryers, instead, it uses the camera to judge whether the food is cooking evenly which it got right every time I tried it. 

Setting aside the AI function, the Daewoo Actuate works really well as an air fryer. It has all the same functions as a regular air fryer with the ability to set the temperature and time. Its only limitation is the level of heat, it only reaches 200ºC whereas the Ninja air fryers all can get up to 230ºC with some models like the Ninja Foodi’s having a Max Crisp setting that can reach 240º, which is better if you want to crisp skin on chicken or if you’re cooking roast potatoes but admittedly it is hot enough for most foods. 

I have a pretty small kitchen so I don’t have a lot of room for large clunky appliances, but I still need a decent-sized cooking basket (there’s only two of us but we do like a big portion and it’s ideal for cooking multiple items at once), so the Daewoo Actutate was ideal. It has an 8-litre capacity cooking basket, but still manages to be small and compact enough not to take up too much space on the kitchen counter, unlike the Ninja Foodi Max 15-in-1, which is bulky and takes up a lot of counterspace, or even a dual-drawer version like the Cusinart XXL.

It’s also easy to clean, which, when it comes to finding the perfect air fryer, is an absolute must. While you can’t put the basket or tray in the dishwasher, it has a non-stick coating so you can wipe away any grease after use. If you do need to clean it more thoroughly, then a quick wash with some hot, soapy water will do the job. One thing to note is that you will need to clean the camera inside to ensure it keeps working properly, but it will alert you when that’s required. 

The Daewoo Actutate Smart Air Fryer Final Verdict

When it comes to air fryers, I’ve always loved Ninja and have gone through a couple of different versions with my current being the Ninja Foodi Max 15-in-1, vowing to never switch brand loyalty. But after testing the Daweoo AI smart fryer, I’m a convert and I can confidently say it’s a brilliant buy. 

It is packed with features that you’d expect to see on a higher-end and more expensive model. The AI presets make it incredibly easy to use, meaning you no longer have to guess times or temperatures. I was blown away by how well it handled everything from chicken to vegetables. 

What really stood out for me was how simple it is to use. You just throw everything in, press a button and that’s it — ideal for when you’re busy or just can’t be bothered. This air fryer is the perfect choice for anyone who wants to simplify their cooking routine and enjoy perfectly cooked food without having to spend a fortune.