Thermomix competitor – TOKIT Omni Cook Review: The “Kitchen Porsche” is often smiled at, but if you ignore the price, the Thermomix from Vorwerk is certainly a good product. I already wished for a “ Xiaomi Thermomix” in the year in review 2018 (with timecode!) and apparently Xiaomi has squinted in the direction of Wuppertal. At the end of 2020, the Ocooker food processor was crowdfunded, but not for Germany. Until now!
Thermomix competitor – TOKIT Omni Cook Review
This is the TOKIT Omni Cook. The Thermomix alternative was successful in crowdfunding and can now be ordered from the European site. The still unknown manufacturer demands 999€ for it. This makes it just half as expensive as the current Thermomix TM6, but also twice as expensive as the Silvercrest Monsieur Cuisine from LIDL. How does the OmniCook fare against this competition? Is it the Thermomix killer?
- TOKIT Omni Cook
- at Amazon for €660.50 | Tokit for 1234€
- Specifications of the Tokit Omni Cook
| Model | Tokit Omni Cook | Thermomix TM6 |
| Dimensions | 355*244*364mm | 341x326x326 |
| Weight | 7.4kg | 7.95kg |
| performance engine | 500W rated power | 500W rated power |
| number of revolutions | 12,000 rpm | 10,700 rpm |
| Mixing bowl capacity | 2.2L | 2.2L |
| temperature | 35 – 180°C | 160°C |
| Price | €899 | €1,359 |
“Xiaomi Ocooker” or TOKIT Omni Cook?
This Thermomix alternative caused a stir at the end of 2020 because it was also assigned to Xiaomi. This was because the food processor from Ocooker was sold via Xiaomi’s Youpin platform, which is why it was also nicknamed “Xiaomi Thermomix”. The Xiaomi Ocooker food processor was only available in China and didn’t even find its way into the Chinese shops. Now this machine is planned for the global market and will be launched under the name TOKIT Omni Cook as a global version of the Ocooker !
But it is interesting that Xiaomi still has a finger in the pie here. Because behind TOKIT and also OCooker is Chunmi Technology, a research & development company with a focus on hardware and software for smart kitchen appliances. Chunmi was founded in 2013 and became a Xiaomi ecosystem company the following year. According to Crunchbase, Chunmi Technology is even a sub-organization of Xiaomi.
The competition
The Chinese are not the first to “copy” the food processor from Vorwerk, Silvercrest (LIDL) has also made several attempts here and was able to adapt the recipe for success with the Monsieur Cuisine Connect. With the Cookit food processor , Bosch also offers an alternative to the Thermomix, but has slightly different priorities. With an RRP of €1299, this alternative is also expensive.
The Thermomix, now also known as “The Original”, became smart in 2014 with the Thermomix TM5 and can also synchronize recipes and receive updates with the “Cookido” app (and subscription). Before that, you rested on the Thermomix TM31 for ten years.
The current model is the Thermomix TM6, with an enlarged display and new features, it costs €1,359 and can also be ordered directly online for the first time. A Thermomix party is no longer necessary. The Thermomix Friend was also announced for 2021, which works together with the TM5 and TM6 thanks to automated transmission.
What is such a thing for anyway?
Since I have had to defend the Thermomix several times in discussions about the usefulness of the device, a short introduction to what you need such a food processor for. Do you absolutely need one? No. If you know how to use pots, pans and knives, you will be able to do without them. Nevertheless, the Thermi is also very suitable for gifted and even professional cooks.
Why? It can save labor and time as it is a blender and cooker combined with some sort of “brain”. Similar to a vacuum robot, it saves time because you don’t have to watch the food processor while cooking. If you cook a soup for 30 minutes, you can do something different in the 30 minutes without having to look at it. Stirring is automatic, nothing burns here!
The recipes are usually fail-proof and therefore particularly suitable for beginners who do not have the time or leisure to learn how to cook. Since the newer models, like the Toki, take you step by step, you don’t have to do much other than follow the instructions. However, this usually also applies to a good non-Thermomix recipe.
More than one Thermomix copy?
The TOKIT Omni Cook uses the idea of the original, but relies on an independent design. In contrast to the Vorwerk models, the mixing bowl is not centered but sits on the left, while the touchscreen display is on the right. This offers a display diagonal of 7 inches, so it is a bit larger than a Redmi Note 10 Pro, for example. The Omni Cook is only available in one colour: black and white. The base is white, while the surface is in black piano lacquer. That makes sense, stains from eg tomato sauce are less visible that way.
The food processor does not take up too much space on your kitchen counter. It is just 35.5 cm long and 24.4 cm high, with the mixing bowl inserted it reaches a height of 36.4 cm. If you put the steam attachment on, it gets correspondingly higher. With the mixing bowl and lid, you get a total weight of 7.4 kg.
This means that you can easily move it around if necessary, but basically we would recommend moving it as little as possible. At least with the Thermomix, moving the scales can affect it, which we have not been able to determine with the Omni Cook so far.
The power button for switching the device on and off is on the right side. The power cable is permanently integrated and not detachable, but can be easily wound up on the plastic spool on the back – practical! A nice addition are the feet of the food processor. These are equipped with suction cups, which means that the Omni Cook attaches itself to the surface under its own weight and cannot slip. Well thought out, Tokit.
How is the Thermomix Killer processed?
“Thermomix killer made in China, that can’t be anything” some might think. Despite some experience with China products, I am pleasantly surprised by the build quality of the Tokit Omni Cook and its accessories. The food processor itself is mostly made of plastic, but the motor and the technology weigh a lot, which is why the plastic was necessary. The display is neatly integrated and the function wheel has a pleasant, if somewhat rough, feedback. Only the power button looks a bit cheap – well.
In contrast to smartphones or smartwatches, there are simply not a number of iterations and templates of such food processors, Tokit or Ocooker from China had to think about this themselves and thought through many steps. It’s clear where the inspiration comes from, but the knife and the pot, for example, were attached differently than Vorwerk.
If you want to remove the knife, you have to loosen a kind of “nut” at the bottom that holds the knife in place and not the whole bottom of the mixing bowl like the original. This has a small disadvantage when it comes to cleaning, which we will address later. However, the plastic base can be removed with three screws if necessary. The mixing bowl is also used differently. When you put it in, it automatically snaps into place, if you want to remove it, you have to move a slider on the left.
But there is still criticism, which concerns the lid of the mixing bowl. You can supposedly turn it in correctly without it sitting 100% on it. The problem is that the lid still “clicks” as if you put it in properly. Unfortunately, the back of the lid can still be open. And that too while the mixer is running – that’s dangerous and a no-go! If the lid is on correctly and you want to remove it during operation, there is a notification and the mixer stops.
Cleaning the TOKIT Omni Cook
Thermomix competitor – TOKIT Omni Cook Review: People would probably much rather cook if they didn’t have to tidy up and clean afterwards. The Tokit Omni Cook does at least some work for you, after all, a “ pre-cleaning mode ” is integrated. You have to put a little less than a liter of water and detergent in the mixing bowl and start the mode, which then takes two minutes. As a few wet kitchen towels confirm, you should stick to the specification. The result is okay, but you still have to clean it manually, especially at the top edge.
Then or directly, the mixing bowl of the Omni Cook can also be put in the dishwasher, which is why the pot is mostly made of stainless steel . Of course, the actual food processor cannot go in the dishwasher! However, it should be wiped off with a damp cloth and a dry cloth in between. In addition to the mixing bowl, all accessories are made of plastic, but according to the operating instructions they are suitable for cleaning in the dishwasher.
This all worked well in the test. The only disadvantage: the plastic on the mixing bowl with the gap between them can house some dirt in the long term. You should possibly detach the housing at irregular intervals in order to clean it completely. If you don’t have a dishwasher at home for reasons of space, you can take a look at BlitzWolf’s compact solution, which we tested.
Operation of the Omni Cook
Under the 7″ display there is a rotary knob, which, just like the original, is also essential for operating the food processor. While navigating through the menu and selecting recipes with the touchscreen, you use the rotary wheel to set the level, temperature and time, for example.
This is particularly useful when cooking and baking, if your fingers are oily, for example, operating the rotary head is easier and better than using the touchscreen. You can start or end the program with a click of the button. Only the fact that the rotary button is inverted in some settings is sometimes not intuitive. Switching on and off is done with the power button on the side.
In addition, the Xiaomi Ocooker is equipped with a speaker that gives you spoken instructions for the selected recipe or lets you know when the dish is ready. But more on that in a moment.
TOKIT Omni Cook with cloud recipes
But why do you need a touchscreen display in a food processor anyway? Vorwerk has been doing it since the TM5 and Xiaomi and Tokit were inspired by it. Recipes are already “ preinstalled ” on the Ocooker , including instructions and a list of ingredients that are easy to read. In addition, the food processor is an IoT product, i.e. equipped with WiFi and can download new recipes via the in-house CookingIoT. The basis here is Android, which can also play videos on the touchscreen display.
Unlike the Thermomix, where you have to pay €36 for an annual subscription to the Cookidoo, the cloud recipes are free. It is not yet known where the manufacturer gets the recipes from and whether the number of several hundred recipes will be increased. After unpacking, some Chinese menu items were still available, despite the selected German language, which were removed after an update. That’s a start.
The operating system is relatively clear. There are three major tabs: Recipes, Mode, and Settings. The latter are limited to WLAN, volume, brightness, language, standby, unit, reset and help with reference to the support mail.
Does the Tokit Omni Cook speak German?
Yes and no. In principle, German can be selected as the language and the operating instructions for the food processor are also multilingual and in German. In addition to German, Chinese, Spanish and English are also possible options. Anyone who is fluent in English should also opt for this, because the German translation is only sometimes successful, but for the most part it is almost funny and unfortunately also unusable.
The fact that some context notifications say “Cancel” instead of “Cancel” can still be forgiven, because it’s still understandable. Understanding the difference between “hacking” and “hacking up” might lead to very different results. In addition, all pre-installed recipes are only in English , so the content is not adapted to German – maybe it’s better that way.
But you don’t just read, thanks to the integrated loudspeaker, the Omni Cook also talks to you. The voice output is apparently a feature that the Thermomix does not offer, feel free to correct me if it is available. However, this is practically useless in German , a speaker with a better pronunciation should have been hired here. There were four of us standing in front of the loudspeaker and trying to decipher the instructions. But we can record the language pack for you, Tokit.
Performance of the TOKIT Omni Cook
However, the connection to the internet and the smart aspect are only one facet of the Thermomix alternative. Frying, cooking, kneading, crushing ice, fermenting or steaming like the TM6 requires a lot of power.
The 7.4 kg device contains a 500W motor that drives the stainless steel mixing blade. As with the original, this consists of four blades that are arranged slightly offset. The mixing bowl has a capacity of 2.2 liters, just like the Thermomix TM5 or TM6 and, according to the manufacturer, should be enough for about 3 servings, which certainly depends on the dish. The maximum power consumption of up to 1700W is even slightly higher than the TM6.
The Ocooker food processor or the Omni Cook can reach a temperature of up to 180°C . Vorwerk’s model “only” manages 160°C. However, the speed is still decisive, especially for the mixer and the knife. With the Tokit Omni Cook, this is a minimum of 40 rpm and a maximum of 12,000 rpm, while the Thermomix TM6 offers a range from 100 rpm to 10,700 rpm. From the data sheet alone, the Omni Cook actually has the edge.
What functions does the Omni Cook have?
Thermomix competitor – TOKIT Omni Cook Review: Tokit advertises the Omni Cook as a 21-in-1 machine, but there are “only” eleven culinary modes. These include kneading mode, steaming, braising, juicing, crushing ice, mincing, chopping, stirring, grinding (?), sous vide and yogurt. There is also the cleaning mode, the weighing mode and an extreme mode.
These modes make sense if you don’t follow a recipe from the cloud and, for example, implement or even freestyle a Thermomix recipe from a cookbook or online. Modes like soy milk or yoghurt give you instructions on what to fill, but the rest of the modes simply offer presets. However, most of them can be customized.
We haven’t tried all the modes yet, so we probably won’t be cooking anything sous vide here either. The weighing mode, i.e. the integrated scales, makes a good impression. This is precise and corresponds exactly to our checkweigher, in contrast to the Thermomix TM5 it even measures to the nearest 1g and not in increments of 5. The stirring mode also helped with the preparation of cookie dough and the extreme mode also had to be used to chop something.
However, you don’t have to select any of the presets, you can also manually adjust the duration, temperature and speed level. This also explains the 21 functions of the Omni Cook, which the manufacturer also includes, for example, the function of a kettle. There is no dedicated mode for this, but theoretically you can simply fill up with water and boil it at 100°C. Well, the manufacturer is “tricking” something here, but he’s not wrong.
What recipes are there?
The smartness of the Tokit Omni Cook is one of the most important features, especially compared to a normal blender or other food processors such as the Blitzwolf model. With Android and an “open”, cloud-based recipe library, Xiaomi and Tokit are using a different approach than Vorwerk with the Cookidoo subscription model. Unfortunately, it is not the case that you can simply install recipes afterwards, as in the Play Store, but (first of all) you have to live with the pre-installed recipes.
These are divided into main courses, starters, desserts, soups, drinks, sauces, baking and sous vide. Not all recipes can be accessed at the same time, so an exact count is difficult to estimate. There are probably just under 100 recipes for the main course, around 20 for starters, drinks and soup, around 30 to 40 for dessert and just four for sous vide. Some of them can be filtered again, for main courses you can, for example, filter “vegan” , which is only vegetarian and not vegan.
I’m sometimes disappointed with the Omni Cook’s recipes , but that’s privately because I don’t eat meat and the majority of the recipes are meat-heavy. What’s more, surprisingly, many of the recipes originate from Asian cuisine and this may not be everyone’s cuisine. You first have to click through dishes like “Mee Siam”, “Kway Teow Pad Thai”, “Pad Kra Pao” or “Chwee Kueh” to understand what you can cook.
It’s cool that some of the recipes even come with a video showing either the finished dish or the preparation. But that’s more true for some, mostly you get a picture, the list of ingredients, the required tools like the measuring spoons and the total time. Then you can click through the different steps, which works well. For example, if a liquid has to be added, the scales are automatically activated so that you can add 100g, for example. You can also jump back and forth between the steps at any time.
Cooking with the TOKIT Omni Cook
Now it’s there in our office kitchen: the long-awaited TOKIT Omni Cook. The first question: “What am I cooking?”. In theory, it should be easy to choose a dish thanks to the pre-installed recipe library. In order to make it bearable for everyone in the editors and in the office, a vegan recipe had to be found, of which there are only a handful.
That’s why I had to resort to the Thermomix classics for the first lunch: date curry dip and the 5 second broccoli salad. Everything was done in manual mode with a recipe from Thermomix Cookido or from Recipe World. Whereby the broccoli salad can be found almost identically as the rainbow salad in the Omni Cook.
The first impression was that the scale is very precise. After the first ingredients for the broccoli salad landed in the pot and had to be chopped up, it became apparent that the information for a Thermomix recipe cannot be copied 1:1 with the Omni Cook. I had to do a bit more by feel and couldn’t really rely on that. My impression so far is that with the Omni Cook you should tend to select a level higher than that specified in the Thermomix recipe and mix a few seconds (1 to 3 seconds) longer when it comes to short mixing processes. Perhaps here the translation of the motor is not quite as direct as with the Thermi.
During the first attempts, this ensured that the broccoli salad was sometimes too runny and too fine. Things went better with the dip and it was a complete success in our office and has been requested almost daily since then. In principle, these results could also be achieved with a good mixer such as the BlitzWolf BW-CB2. The big advantage of such a food processor is the possibility to “cook”.
Alex and Maike, both of whom have never worked with a Thermomix or similar before, were also impressed by the preparation. It took some time to get used to and a bit of skepticism, but after the first “mixing” you start to develop a feeling for it, so that one or two additional lunches were also prepared with it.
Cook with temperature
That’s why a chili sin carne was on the menu, where you first sauté onions that the Omni Cook chopped up beforehand. In combination with some oil, these had to be steamed for two minutes. One problem: The recipe speaks of the Thermomix Varoma level. This corresponds to a temperature of 100°C , you should remember that, there is no such button on the Tokit device. Boiling and steaming worked very well in the test, the temperature is reached within a few minutes and we were able to stick to the Thermomix recipe completely.
Scope of delivery & accessories for the Tokit Omni Cook
Since the Thermomix has existed for over 50 years – respect – there have also been a number of accessories that have been designed over the years. As someone who has often disassembled a TM31 or TM5, the accessories such as the steamer attachment and the butterfly attachment of the Omni Cook remind me of the Vorwerk original. Here one has been “inspired” by the original much more clearly than with the design of the food processor itself.
Of course, the scope of delivery of the Omni Cook includes the Omni Cook itself, the mixing knife, the mixing bowl, the measuring cup aka “plug” for the lid, the cooking insert, a set of measuring spoons, a silicone spatula and a mixing insert . Compared to the TM 6, the steam attachment is missing, but you can also purchase it separately from Tokit for €79. Vorwerk called this “Varoma”.
As spare parts, Tokit offers the mixing bowl for €169, which includes the measuring cup and the stainless steel knife in addition to the pot with lid. Alternatively, you can also just order the knife for €59. There is also the mixing attachment, spatula and measuring cup.
There is also a slow cooking attachment that replaces the stainless steel knife and converts the mixing bowl into a saucepan. There is also a plastic knife attachment, which should ensure that the liquid is better distributed and not all the food is chopped up by the knife.
Price & release of the TOKIT Omni Cook
The TOKIT Omni Cook caught our attention because it was even available in crowdfunding on Kickstarter at the Super Early Bird price of €599, but it was very limited. The asking price was €799 , but the Thermomix alternative normally costs €899. For the price you get the mixing bowl, a cooking insert, a mixer attachment, the measuring cup, a set of measuring spoons, the stainless steel blade and a silicone scraper in addition to the food processor.
The Omni Cook is scheduled to be shipped in Europe from October 3, 2021 and shipping should take 4 to 8 days if ordered within Germany. Shipping is free for orders over $100 and Tokit promises a 2-year warranty on the Omni Cook itself, but not on the accessories.
Conclusion: Buy TOKIT Omni Cook?
Thermomix competitor – TOKIT Omni Cook Review: The Ocooker food processor, also known as the “Xiaomi Thermomix”, was originally only planned for China. We are very pleased that the relatively unknown manufacturer TOKIT has decided to bring the Thermomix alternative to Europe. And the Omni Cook is really well implemented, especially in terms of hardware.
Apart from the cover, the workmanship leaves nothing to be desired, the range of functions is very large and all the functions tested so far work as desired and the results are definitely impressive. You really get an all-in-one machine with performance that even outperforms the more expensive Thermomix TM6.
The biggest disadvantage is still the software and recipe selection. The Tokit Omni Cook can currently only be used to a very limited extent in German and the recipes probably correspond to a smaller target group in terms of language and selection. Vorwerk simply has the better operating system here, even if language, for example, is not integrated.
It’s similar to 3D printers, top models like the Creality Ender-3 benefit from the community. This is also the case with the Thermomix. You can at least partially use the recipes as an omni cooker. But you can’t stick to the recipes 1:1 and you have to develop a feel for how to use them.
Thermomix competitor – TOKIT Omni Cook Review: The price midfield position with a price of 899 € between Monsieur Cuisine and Thermomix can be an advantage when making a purchase decision. However, it will be difficult. In terms of functionality, it stands out from the LIDL Thermomix with more rpm, higher temperature and even more functions. On the other hand, the LIDL device is more suitable for families due to its higher capacity and costs less.
Due to the software, I can currently only recommend the Tokit Omni Cook to a limited extent, although I like it a lot. With better translation and more recipe selection, the Omni Cook offers many well-implemented functions. A serious point of criticism apart from that is only the lid, which poses a security risk. We will continue to test it and look forward to your input! Thermomix competitor – TOKIT Omni Cook Review.
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