June may have had its cloud services turned off by Weber, which bought the company back in 2021, but that doesn’t necessarily mean its smart ovens have to become dumb appliances. A new community project called Project July is attempting to keep older June Ovens connected by moving the software needed to run them onto the oven itself.
The project comes from June Oven owners who still have working hardware but don’t want to lose the app-dependent features simply because the company’s servers are no longer running. Rather than trying to recreate June’s cloud elsewhere, Project July puts a small server directly on the oven, allowing the oven and phone to communicate locally over the home network.
That means some of the functionality is already available without relying on June’s cloud. The team says it has successfully tested local pairing with multiple phones and tablets, as well as Home Assistant integration. Users can also remotely preheat the oven, set its temperature and cancel cooking.
There’s even an upgrade for the built-in camera. Project July currently supports a live camera feed at up to 15 frames per second, compared with the stock 1fps experience, and can provide an MJPEG stream to Home Assistant.
An Android app has also been customised for the project, although a native replacement for the original June app is still being worked on. The team says the current customised app can’t be signed for Apple devices.
There are some fairly hands-on steps involved. For the supported ovens, installation currently involves turning the oven onto its left side, removing seven screws to access the bottom components and connecting a micro-USB cable to the board. A laptop is then booted from a USB stick to install the software.
That’s also why Project July isn’t offering a download just yet. The developers say they want more testing and validation before asking people to open up their ovens, with checksums planned for published files once everything is ready.
There’s an important limitation, too: third-generation June Ovens aren’t currently supported. The team discovered that Gen 3 models lack the micro-USB port and two buttons found on Gen 2, although it is investigating other possible connection points.
The project is designed to keep everything local, with no June cloud, Project July account or external server involved. The developers say camera data also stays on the home network.
Project July is an independent community effort and isn’t affiliated with or supported by June or Weber. For now, the team is asking June Oven owners to follow its progress and provide feedback before the installation files are released.
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