Abstract: A cooking appliance includes a cabinet defining a cooking chamber, a door configured to open and close the cooking chamber, a heating element configured to provide heat to the cooking chamber, a camera directed at the cooking chamber, and a controller operably connected to the camera. The controller is configured to initiate a cooking operation including determining that the door is in a closed position, capturing a first image of the cooking chamber using the camera, determining an occupied state of the cooking chamber based on the first image, and initiating a timer sequence upon determining the occupied state of the cavity.

Abstract: A method of operating a cooking appliance in coordinated communication with, for example, a remote server and a user device, is provided. The method may include receiving a recipe selection signal of a predetermined recipe at the remote server, and transmitting a recipe information signal to the cooking appliance based on the predetermined recipe. The method may further include receiving an appliance confirmation signal from the cooking appliance in response to a discrete recipe action of the predetermined recipe being performed at the cooking appliance subsequent to receiving the recipe selection signal. The method may still further include transmitting a determined status signal to the user device based on the received appliance confirmation signal.