Smart sous vide cooker to start charging $2/month for 10-year-old companion app
“You’ve just lost a LONGTIME and very faithful customer."
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I haven't used the app in a while and opened it and saw this... Well never buying Anova again
But hey at least they gave me a coupon that expired two months ago.
Imagine seeing that message and buying another product from them.
“It’s time to artificially create waste. Don’t worry, you won’t see this message again. Our new cookers are designed to not last 10 years.”
100%. They've just guaranteed that the sous vide unit that I have now is the last Anova product I will ever buy.
Ung
(Don’t) hope they did their math right and the “well, it’s just $2/mo” crowd is large enough to offset the principled crowd
That notice doesn't even say there is a $2/mo option. App just won't work at all.
Imagine Goodyear 500 tires!...for just 30 bucks a month you too can get the most inexpensive tires of all. 500 mile tires!. After 500 miles they don't spin or hold air so we recommend setting your odometer properly.
I can't imagine why these things even need an app.
You have to set the thing up with water and all, just hit the buttons on the device.
The one and only time I used the app it lost connectivity and left my chuck roast in lukewarm water for who knows how long. Tossed it because I didn't want to kill my family with food poisoning. It's nice if you have a WIFI connected device, so you can put something on the counter in an ice water bath in the morning with the sous vide wand in there and flip it on before you leave work in the afternoon. Also seeing that the water has maintained an appropriate temp during a long cook is nice too. It's a niche case use, but that's why it's nice to have it connected.
I have a different brand, but I can see the value. The interface on the small screen on the device I have is very clumsy. Took me a while to figure it out, and I'm very tech savvy. I can see a mobile app being useful, also for notifications so I don't independently have to set timers.
Also as a former mobile dev, mobile apps take maintenance to keep up with OS changes over time. And developers are expensive.
What I imagine happened is that they probably outsourced their app development to a 3rd party, because they make hardware, not software. That contract probably expired, including their ongoing support agreement, and they've probably negotiated an hourly rate for support on-demand going forward, maybe with a different 3rd party dev.
So in all likelihood, they're just passing the cost for ongoing maintenance on an EOL model to the customer.
However, that looks absolutely insane from a consumer standpoint.
I don't know their Financials, but they may not be big enough to just swallow the cost for brand PR if they're not selling at a volume and profit margin to be able lose money on old products.
This is why, even as a dev that used to work in the mobile and IOT space, I tend to purchase dumb devices if there are good options. Smart devices get dumb as soon as the shine has dulled.
My partner has an Anovo affected by this and he knows the details better than me, but IIRC the app allows you to set times to change temps or things like that. The device still works without the app, but you lose the convenience factor of being able to monitor or make changes at a distance.
It's kinda nice to just search what you are making, click cook, and all the settings are preloaded and the device starts. The manual interface is clunky.
Size and easy to clean (and waterproof) is one, I have a ChefSteps Joule which is app control only, but it is much easier to clean, and much smaller than my old Anova (fits in a drawer with other crap)
Granted it is more annoying to use the app than the controls, but the trade off for us was worth it, if not for everyone.
They could just use capacitive touch for controls, inferior to buttons but just as cleanable. There's little reason to not have both options
Capacitive touch controls around anything with the potential to generate steam or condensation is an awful idea. At best they just don't work with damp fingers, at worst the buttons short or randomly activate because of the water that builds up.
I have one, and didn't know it had an app.
That’s bullshit
Actively encouraging people to toss perfectly good hardware to fuel their subscription bullshit… and these guys weren’t even recently bought by a VC firm or anything?
They were bought by Electrolux in 2017, and have been enshittifying ever since. Cheaper, lower quality parts, etc. They're just profiting from the brand as they turn it to shit. Never buy their products.
Unrelated but how would you rate sous vide cooking? I am tempted for a bunch of reasons but I'm worried it'll be just another kitchen appliance that I rarely use.
For steaks, they're excellent. About the only thing I haven't been able to do over a good steakhouse restaurant is an extremely crisply outer layer. There's some techniques there that I haven't learned yet that might fix that. Everything else about the juiciness and taste is easily the same or better.
You're basically taking all the art of out it that you would have to learn to become a top steak grill master, and replacing it with precision.
Make sure you dry your steak extremely well, and then basically shallow fry it in a cast iron or other heavy pan. Don't need to deep fry it, but if you really want it as crispy, you want a real layer of oil.
One strength of sous vide is you can get even normal steaks much more tender than otherwise possible, just by extending your sous vide time up to two or three hours.
I was using it for steaks and it's been great - sous vide then cast iron pan - but I moved somewhere where the smoke alarm is extremely sensitive so haven't used it much lately 😞
There are different type of smoke alarms. Some detect smoke. There are two ways of doing that. Near a kitchen area it's usually best to get a completely different one that just uses changes in temperature. Though they will only notify you way matter. So highly recommend keeping the existing one and moving that one somewhere else.
If you're not committed, you don't actually need an appliance for it, have had great results with a Dutch oven and a programmable BBQ thermometer monitoring the water temp. One of my burners goes really low so just a matter of adjusting to keep in range. You don't get forced circulation (get some natural circulation though) and it's not set and forget, but you can do with stuff you probably already have on hand. Done with heavy freezer bags before I was gifted a vacuum sealer.
I would see if there's a way to disable updates for that app.
Do you need the apk to use it at all? Or is it just a little perk to go along with it?
Hopefully, someone hacks the apk so it just keeps working.
I bought one of these years ago, and took a look at it. The app let's you remote control the stick and pick recipes that will autoset the temps. That's about it. The stick has buttons on it, and it's not like you can have it add the food to the water bath remotely. It'd pretty easy to knock in the temp at the heater while you're there
Sous vide is a "set and forget" cooking method like a crockpot. You can walk away and leave the thing running long past the minimum time and have no issues because the whole point is it takes food to an exact temp and no further. So even any alerting "temp reached" it may do now isn't really useful.
This feels like a "pick the carcass" attempt to make some money at all. I expect the company is probably in a bad state if this is the game they are playing.
Yeah. I've used sous vide for a long time myself. Sounds like the whole apk could be replaced with asking the internet what temp to cook X at, and then setting your phones timer for cook time.
"supporting them". I understand bug fixes and the inevitable support end-of-life cycle, etc; I really do. But the reasoning behind abandoning an old, yet in-use product is because you want them to buy a newer alternative.
