The Calphalon ActiveSense is a full-size blender designed for automatic blending. It has programs for different recipes and controls that let you select the desired thickness and consistency of the final result, which is an unusual feature for a blender. It comes with a 64oz main jar and a 24oz personal jar, and it's best suited for liquidy recipes like smoothies and soups. Unfortunately, some parts of the blender don't feel very well made, including the gears and blade assembly.
Our Verdict
The Calphalon ActiveSense is excellent for multi-purpose use. You can use the main jar for big batches of smoothies or hot soup. It easily crushes ice and also comes with a personal jar for single-serve smoothies. However, it's not very convenient to use for recipes like nut butter, partly because it doesn't come with a tamper, so you need to remove the lid to stir. It has automatic blending programs and controls that let you select the desired texture and consistency of the final result. However, there are only three speed presets, which is limiting when you're using the manual blending mode. It's decently well-built, but the gear design isn't durable and the motor base tends to move around when it's running.
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Easy to clean.
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Makes snow-like crushed ice.
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Can hot blend.
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Motor base feels cheap.
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No tamper.
The Calphalon ActiveSense is excellent for making smoothies. It comes with a 24oz personal jar that makes silky smoothies with ingredients like kale and blueberries. There's a 'Smoothie' blending program, which lets you multitask while the blender runs. However, you may need to undock and flip the jar to dislodge any ingredients that are stuck at the top, which is often not necessary when you're blending in a smaller jar. Still, it's easy to clean and comes with a to-go lid so you can use the jar as a travel cup.
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Makes snow-like crushed ice.
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Comes with a personal jar.
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Smoothly blends fibrous ingredients.
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Motor base feels cheap.
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Not the fastest smoothie blender.
The Calphalon ActiveSense is fantastic for multiple servings of smoothies. It easily crushes ice cubes and makes a smooth blend with fibrous ingredients like leafy greens and fruit in its 64oz main jar. There's an automatic blending program for smoothies that you can use if you want to step away from the blender while it runs. However, some blenders can make a big batch of smoothies more quickly.
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Makes snow-like crushed ice.
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Smoothly blends fibrous ingredients.
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Motor base feels cheap.
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Not the fastest smoothie blender.
The Calphalon ActiveSense is excellent for crushing ice. Using the pulse button, it quickly breaks up ice cubes into snow-like ice. Unfortunately, the design of the gears makes them less durable, and you might want a better-built blender if you plan to crush hard ingredients like ice cubes often.
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Makes snow-like crushed ice.
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Motor base feels cheap.
The Calphalon ActiveSense is incredible for soups. The 64oz main jar can be used for hot blending, so you can blend soups with ingredients directly from the stove. It does a fantastic job of blending fibrous vegetables like kale and broccoli, which is important for smooth pureed soups and sauces. Its removable blade assembly makes it easy to clean by hand, and all of its components are dishwasher-safe.
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Can hot blend.
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Motor base feels cheap.
The Calphalon ActiveSense is great for professional use. It has a big capacity and a versatile performance, since it can hot blend, smoothly blends fibrous ingredients, and makes snow-like ice. However, it doesn't come with a tamper, and using it for thick recipes like nut butter or hummus is quite labor-intensive. However, it's not extremely sturdy, and the gear design in particular isn't very durable, which isn't ideal if you want a machine that will stand up to daily use.
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Easy to clean.
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Can hot blend.
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Motor base feels cheap.
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No tamper.
- 8.5 Multi-Purpose
- 8.6 Smoothies (Single Serving)
- 9.1 Smoothies (Multiple Servings)
- 9.2 Ice Crushing
- 9.3 Soups
- 8.1 Professional Use
- Updated May 10, 2023: Updated the text to match Test Bench 1.0.
- Updated Sep 06, 2022: Converted to Test Bench 1.0.
- Updated Mar 30, 2022: Review published.
- Updated Mar 22, 2022: Early access published.
- Updated Mar 16, 2022: Our testers have started testing this product.
- Updated Mar 11, 2022: The product has arrived in our lab, and our testers will start evaluating it soon.
- Updated Mar 09, 2022: We've purchased the product and are waiting for it to arrive in our lab.
- Updated Mar 07, 2022: The product has won our suggestion poll, so we’ll buy and test it soon.
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Differences Between Sizes And Variants
The Calphalon ActiveSense comes in one color, 'Gray', and you can see the label for the unit we tested here. If you come across another variant, please let us know in the discussions, and we'll update our review.
Compared To Other Blenders
The Calphalon ActiveSense is a full-size blender with a 64-ounce main pitcher and a 24-ounce personal jar for making single-serve drinks. Like the Ninja Professional Plus Blender with Auto-iQ or the Ninja Blender Duo with Auto-iQ BL642, it's advertised to automatically adjust the blending speed and time to produce the best results. However, the speed adjustment isn't noticeable and the 'Add Liquid' alert feature, which lets you know if there's not enough liquid in your mix to blend well, appears inconsistently. The motor base's build quality also isn't the best.
If you're looking for other options, take a look at the best blenders for smoothies, the best blender for frozen drinks, and the best blenders.
The NutriBullet Smart Touch Blender Combo is better for smoothies than the Calphalon ActiveSense. The NutriBullet is better-built and makes a silkier smoothie with fibrous ingredients like kale. It also comes with two personal jars for single-serve smoothies, while the Calphalon only includes one. On the other hand, the Calphalon is more versatile, since it can crush ice and make smooth nut butter.
The Breville the Fresh & Furious is better than the Calphalon ActiveSense for most purposes. It's sturdier and has a better blending performance, so it can make silkier smoothies with fibrous fruits and vegetables. It's also much easier to use for thicker recipes like nut butter. However, you might prefer the Calphalon because it has a bigger 64oz capacity in its main jar and comes with a personal jar and to-go lid for single-serve smoothies.
You might prefer either the Calphalon ActiveSense or the Ninja Professional Plus Kitchen System with Auto-iQ. The Calphalon is much better at processing bigger batches of fibrous ingredients for recipes like smoothies. Its blade design makes it easier to clean by hand. On the other hand, the Ninja is better for tough blends like making nut butter. It's much quieter when it's running, and it comes with a food-processing bowl for chopping and slicing.
The Ninja Foodi Power Pitcher System and the Calphalon ActiveSense have different strengths. The Ninja comes with an extra jar that makes it much easier to use for thick recipes like nut butter. It's better-built and has a greater number of speed presets. However, the Calphalon can be used for hot blending, so it's way more suitable for recipes like soup or sauce. Its main jar is easier to clean by hand than the Ninja's.
Test Results
The Calphalon ActiveSense is a somewhat tall full-size blender. It's not overly bulky but still takes up some room on a kitchen counter or in a cabinet. It takes up a bit less vertical space with the personal jar attached .
The Calphalon ActiveSense is decently well-built. The materials used for the jars and lids seem sturdy, and the motor base's display screen is of good quality. The lid seals securely with friction, and the bottom of the motor base is ventilated to let heat escape. There's a hole on the motor base under where the jar sits that lets any spilled liquid drain out. The blender detects which jar you're using, which allows it to adjust its performance, such as changing the duration of blending programs.
Ηowever, the rest of the motor base feels cheap. The buttons wiggle when you're not using them and feel like they may get stuck after a while. The motor base can also jump around your counter when the blender is running, especially when you use the personal jar to process hard ingredients like frozen fruit. Its transmission uses a square-shaped gear while the jar has a star-shaped gear. It means you sometimes need to wiggle the jar to get it into place. It also wears out the gears more quickly since it causes more friction as they rub against each other. The gear assembly feels loose and is only held together by a rubber gasket. This design makes it easier to disassemble for cleaning, but it means you can't use the blender if you misplace the gasket.
The jar has a 64oz capacity, so it's suitable for big batches. There's also a 24oz personal jar included for recipes like single-serve smoothies.
Both jars are made of plastic and are dishwasher-safe. Both jars have measuring marks in ounces, cups, and milliliters.
The Calphalon 2099742 ActiveSense has one blade assembly for both jars. There are six sharp blades angled in different directions, which can help slice up ingredients like leafy greens. The blade assembly screws onto the black plastic hub and it held in place by a rubber gasket, so it's easy to remove them for cleaning. You can see the blades attached to the hub here. They're also dishwasher-safe.
There's a 2-part lid for the main jar that seals with friction. The middle part is removable, meaning you can add ingredients mid-blend. You can also use the center piece as a measuring cup, and it holds about two ounces.
The Calphalon ActiveSense's power cable is thin, and there's no place to stow or wrap it when it's not in use. It should be long enough to reach an outlet near your counter, though.
- Calphalon ActiveSense motor base
- 64 ounce main jar
- Two-part lid
- 24 ounce personal jar
- Spout lid
- Blade assembly (3 parts)
- Quick start guide
It's fantastic for small batches of fibrous ingredients. It makes a nearly completely smooth puree with small amounts of ingredients like kale using the personal jar. However, it doesn't do it as quickly as some blenders. Some ingredients can splash up the sides of the jar, so for the best results you need to undock the jar partway through and flip it over to wash everything back towards the blades.
It's also fantastic at processing fibrous ingredients at full capacity. If you fill the main jar to full capacity, it makes a well-blended puree with fibrous ingredients like kale, broccoli, or fruits. Some blenders can produce similar results more quickly, and you can still see a few tiny specs in the final blend, but overall it's very well-suited for big batches of fibrous ingredients.
The Calphalon ActiveSense is fantastic for crushing ice. Using the 'Pulse' button to manually pulse, it pulverizes ice cubes into snow-like crushed ice very quickly. Some blenders have ice crushing modes, which avoids you needing to press the button over and over, but overall it's a very easy process.
It's okay for making nut butter. It takes a while and doesn't continually pull the thick mixture into the vortex, so you need to stop the blender periodically and use a spatula to scrape the walls of the jar. After nearly 10 minutes of blending, it produces good, spreadable nut butter. However, the blender doesn't fully process all of the nuts so it has a crunchy texture.
It's fairly loud. Quieter blenders like the Breville the Fresh & Furious or the KitchenAid K150 are less irritating to stand next to, especially if you need to blend for a few minutes.
There are only 3 preset speed settings that you can use with the manual blending mode. That makes it impossible to make small adjustments or slowly ramp up the speed. However, there is a big difference between the lowest and highest settings, so you can blend at a low speed to avoid over-blending and a high speed when you want to liquify ingredients for something like a smoothie.
There are buttons for the three preset speeds, pulse mode, and on/off. There's also a play/pause button that starts and stops the blender once it's powered on. There are buttons for choosing from five 'food modes' for different recipes and selecting the desired thickness for the final product.
There are five different blending programs, including 'Milkshake', 'Juice', 'Smoothie', 'Salsa', and 'Frozen Drink'. It also lets you select the texture you want for the final product. You can choose between 'thick' or 'thin' for beverages like smoothies and 'chunky' or 'smooth' for food like sauces or dips. The manufacturer advertises this blender to use sensors to automatically adjust the blending speed, blade direction, and blending time to help produce the consistency you want. The blending programs run for different amounts of time depending on which jar you're using, but any speed adjustments aren't noticeable.
The Calphalon ActiveSense is easy to clean. Running the blender with soap and water in the jar helps remove sticky food from the blades and the sides of the jar. You need to spend some time scrubbing the blades and bottom of the jar with a brush, but you can always remove the blades from the jar to make it easier to reach them.