Back in 2017, a friend put a post up on Facebook about how amazing her Tefal Actifry was and how it had revolutionised her routine.

I was instantly intrigued. As a mum to (then) four and eight year-old daughters, and with both my husband and I working full time, anything that promised to make bit easier was a must buy.

Our first Tefal Actifry was £89 from the Tefal outlet in Street, . My huband protested as the prospect of another gadget in our kitchen - to be fair he does a lot of the cooking and the housework in our home - but I was not deterred. They even threw in a soup maker for a buy one get one half-price discount.

The Actifry didn't have a lot of moving parts, it worked simply by having a paddle which rotated around the base which stopped food sticking to the bottom. It also had a handy oil dispenser which told you how much you needed to cook healthy chips and roast veg.

We mostly used it for oven chips, at that stage our girls were now super fussy and my husband had been promoted so we didn't spend quite as much time doing any actual cooking.

It was well used but six months in, I attempted to make spaghetti bolognaise, adding the onions first and then the veg, stock mince and sauce. Unfortunately I overfilled it and it stopped working.

Reluctantly I took it to our local Tefal outlet in Braintree, they agreed to take it back in part exchange for a larger slightly more expensive model.

Unfortunately that too broke after a year. Overused with oven chips, although our repertoire now included roast veg and lots of sweet pototoes.

We then moved home and the Actifry got taken to the dump. I also vowed not to buy any more kitchen gadgets and go minimal.

But then during lockdown I started scrolling reviews of the Thermomix, a £1,000 plus gadget that does everything, well mostly everything; my husband's question as to whether it would also iron his shirts and polish his shoes went unanswered.

My compromise was to buy a Ninja Foodi Max 15-in-1. Not just an air frier, but pressure cooker, steam cooker, roaster, dyhydrater, prover and even yoghurt maker.

I used it to the max this time and we made lovely curries, steam-roasted veg and some deyhdrated salmon snacks for our Beagles.

We did also use it to cook oven chips but more likely the air frier was kept busy with making tofu, paneer and halloumi crispy.

That first model lasted a year. It's time expired when when the pressure cooker function stopped working. I was cooking some rice and was waiting for the steam function to release. I waited a few mintues and nothing was happening and the lid locked fast.

I convinced myself the Ninja was about to explode and - my children were at school - I evacuated the house, going on to the green outside with our dogs. I called my husband demanding he return home immediately - at the time he had 20 staff to manage and was a engineer in a major IT company.

I realised how silly it all was and ventured back into the house, turned off the machine and rang Joihn Lewis who agreed to replace it with the same model.

Our fourth air frier, also a Ninja saw even more action, I baked cakes in it - mostly Nigella Lawson's devils food chocolate cake on repeat.

But the pressure cooker function freaked me out a bit too much and on the one occasion I went to use it the lid locked again and wouldn't release. John Lewis kindly gave me a credit note when I told them the appliance scared me.

So a year ago we bought our Instant Pot duo crisp and air fryer for £179. It does also have a pressure cooker and slow cooker function but I've not used those yet.

It has lasted so far, I think because it doesn't have so many moving parts as the Ninja - so there are less things that could go wrong. It's not quite as good at crisping chips, and paneer and halloumi do stick to the air fryer pan, in the Ninja they always cooked through and were easy to take out with no bits left behind.

But the IP is also easier to clean, the Ninja's element was incredibly fiddly to wash. However a couple of nights ago it started making a strange noise so I'm crossing my fingers that this one is 'the one'.