I'm writing this review hoping to save others from the frustration I've had with these. I've bought 2 of these now and both have failed the exact same way. The studs that hold the gearbox on break off after just a few uses. The roughest thing I've ever used it for was to crush graham crackers to make a pie crust. The last one I've only had 8 months and only used it 5 times during that time. Poor design, not a good value for the money. Like the title says, Works great, until it doesn't.

I'll preface by saying I've used this grill extensively, and as a product designer myself, it was impossible to not be constantly bothered by the silly, nonsensical design choices made in this grill. Overall, it's super quick to start, easy to get going, cooks amazingly for what it is, but the user experience could be improved quite a bit. In theory, the grill tries to guide you along to do the right thing at the right time and make it stupid-baby-simple, but in practice, it obscures the simplicity of its functions, makes what you're trying to do annoying, and forces users to fight against the grill to do what they want. First, the knob for the mode selector. If you touch it in the middle of cooking and change a setting, which is quite easy to do, everything resets. I've had this happen more than once and it's very frustrating. I've also accidentally went from the "grill" setting to "off" a couple times by accident which just shouldn't be possible. This should be a much more rigid knob at the least, and the on/off switch should be a totally separate function. Alternatively, if you try to change a setting during cooking, the display should ask you if you actually want to change cooking modes and hit start to confirm. Second, the woodsmoke button is weird and not intuitive. You have to enable woodsmoke by pressing the button BEFORE pressing start or it won't ignite. There is a way to turn it on mid-grill by pressing and holding the woodsmoke button until it starts flashing but this isn't obvious and also doesn't seem to work as well. This should simply be an on/off switch on its own circuit and operate independently from the rest of the unit. There are times when I don't want to start smoking until later, or want to cut off the smoke when I think it's had enough, and I really can't do that unless I reset the grill and go through the motions again to get it running with the right settings. Next, temperature. Why is there not a thermometer reading on the interface or the shell of the grill so that you know what the air temp inside is? It absolutely has a thermoregulator because there's a preheat function that will change its progress bar if the grill is already hot when you begin the preheat, so its measuring something in there, but we aren't allowed to see it! Silly! The meat thermometer is nice and works well but sometimes I'm not cooking meats and still want a temp reading in there... Cooking... For whatever reason, the grill (and possibly other) setting adds in a random "FLIP FOOD" beep that triggers at half of whatever your grill time was when you set it. This is almost never correct, gets your attention for no reason, and won't go away until you lift and close the lid. Get rid of this dumb "feature". Because this is essentially an air fryer, almost every setting wants to utilize the internal fan. Depending on what you're cooking this can be really annoying. I've cooked pancakes on this using the flat top add-on, and when the fan kicks in, it makes the pancakes slide and fly around inside the grill. makes a huge mess. you have to stand there and lift and close the lid every time the fan kicks on. Please add a "griddle" setting or something that will not use the fans, or will only spin them a tiny bit. THE BEEPS - my god this thing likes to beep. it sings beeps all the time. Chill with the beeps unless the preheat is done or the timer is done. There's no other reason to bother me. Overall, I still really like it, it does cook very well despite its size and it basically being an air fryer. I've smoked pork to success, made pizzas, pancakes, bacon & eggs, anything you can think of, and it CAN yield great results... It really would be the perfect little electric grill if it would just shut the F up and let me use its functions the way I want to instead of pretending that it's helping me. Lastly.... "WOODFIRE" is a F'ing stupid misleading title for this thing. It's just not a woodfire grill. Factually, it is not the thing that it is called. That makes no sense and misleads users. This should have been called WOODSMOKE!!! Come on!!!

I purchased this as a Prime Deal for about $35. It operates at one heating temperature and has a rudimentary dial timer. The simplistic design is easy to use but does not warrant the full MSRP of $70. The basket and tray are not dishwasher safe but the non-stick surfaces are easily cleaned by hand with soap and water. Aftermarket silicon or paper inserts would further simplify clean up. It does a nice job chicken wings, but size limits then number of wings to about six or eight to ensure even cooking and crispness (single layer). If your house goes through a lot of pizza rolls and chicken nuggets in single serving quantities, this might be a good option. The nature of air fryers is circulating air so while its pretty quiet during warm up it gets about as noisy as a microwave when it gets going. It also projects the smell of the cooking food a good ways. This unit takes up about as much space as a toaster. A good toaster oven with an air fryer setting might be a more versatile tool that handles multiple functions without sacrificing counter space.