Current Backyard's smart pizza oven bakes pies in two minutes

Baking an authentic Neapolitan pizza at home usually requires a backyard, a propane tank, and a lot of patience. If you look away for twenty seconds, you end up with charcoal on one side and raw dough on the other.

Current Backyard wants to change that equation. At CES, the company introduced the Model P, a $599 smart electric pizza oven designed to fit both outdoor setups and cramped apartment kitchens, capable of baking a 12-inch pie in just two minutes.

High heat without the manual spinning

Electric countertop ovens rarely get hot enough for genuine pizza, but the Model P pushes temperatures up to 850 degrees Fahrenheit. That is hot enough to blister dough and melt cheese in the same two-minute window you would expect from a wood-fired commercial oven.

It ships with a 12-inch cordierite stone and dedicated modes for Neapolitan, New York style, thin crust, and frozen pies, along with a broiling option.

More importantly, Current Backyard claims you do not have to babysit the crust. Unlike competitor units from brands like Ooni that require continuous manual rotating to avoid scorching, the Model P uses a proprietary algorithm to balance airflow and heat distribution across the stone.

Wi-Fi connectivity and a topping calculator

The oven connects via Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, letting you monitor cooking progress directly from your phone instead of hovering over the deck.

Inside the companion mobile app, a feature called the Pizza Build Calculator takes the guesswork out of timing. Users input the thickness of their dough and the rough amount of sauce, cheese, and toppings, and the software calculates the optimal bake time and temperature profile.

According to Current Backyard CEO Tom Penner, the unit is built specifically to eliminate the physical footprint and fuel hurdles that keep apartment dwellers from baking proper artisan pies indoors.

Why it matters

High-end pizza ovens are notoriously difficult for beginners. They demand outdoor space, constant manual attention, and a steep learning curve before you pull out anything remotely edible.

Current Backyard is attacking the exact pain points that keep casual foodies away. By swapping open gas flames for electricity, they open up the product to millions of apartment renters who legally cannot use outdoor propane setups. Meanwhile, automating the rotation and temperature curve solves the two easiest ways to ruin dinner.

At $599, it is an expensive countertop appliance with a very specific job. But if its heat distribution actually eliminates manual crust spinning without sacrificing char, it could set a new benchmark for indoor cooking gadgets that bring commercial-level heat inside the home.