LOVE my Anova! I frequently make medium rare fillets and they are absolute perfection every time.
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After I realized I was going to be into brewing for the long haul, I decided it was worthwhile to get gear that would let me spend more time developing good recipes, and less time fiddling with the gear itself.
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This cracked me up! Though I can certainly identify with the annoyance and hassles about connecting certain devices.
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It was very strange. I thought maybe it was getting wifi info from the phone via bluetooth, but it still made me enter everything by hand. Not sure that thatās all about.
Imagine rolling a giant metal tube and your phone under your couch all the way to the back, then reaching under and entering your 12 random character wifi password and manipulating a mouse scroll wheel on the tube. All the while your bluetooth wonāt find the tube and every time it fails, you have to pull everything out and reset it before you can try again. It was like that.
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WiFi and Bluetooth seems like overkill for an immersion circulator.
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Yeah, itās a little unnecessary. The wifi is so that you can control it via app from a remote location. The bluetooth is just so that you can monitor it like what the current water temp is, what your settings are, etcā¦ while in the vicinity of the device. Itās a little easier to blast through the list of temp. options on the list on the phone vs. scrolling in 1/2 degree increments from say 90Ā° to 165Ā°, but ultimately will remain unused for the most part.
Sounds just awful. I would never have been able to even get back up from the floor, much less been successful pairing those things. 
Absolutely ā I have the non-connected Gen 1 anova and use it at least once a week, but for the life of me canāt imagine why it would āneedā a remote. I turn it on, set the temp and pretty much forget about it until Iām ready to finish the dish. While most of the time I donāt cook anything past 2 hours, I have cooked ribs for as long as 36 hours. Checking casually as I walk past, Iāve never seen a deviation of more than 0.1ĀŗC.
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We play with sous vide at the Shapiro house too - I met the CEO of Nomiku and she talked me into buying one. Itās fun, and as a bonus, hard for the kids to burn themselves. My son made sous vide steak with me doing the final sear; came out great.
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I usually do it all manually unless Iām starting it from work or something.
My wife likes being able to look through recipes and just hit āgoā on her phone. I imagine if an update required a reconnect that she would probably stop using it though.
Hopefully the searing was on the Glowforge?
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Love my Anova that I got for Motherās Day from my awesome husband. You all should try salmon (with brining first). And I love the wifi. Iāve used it to start dinner while at soccer practiceā¦itās like the cooler older cousin of the crock pot!
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Dry brining is so great for just about any meat, however you prepare it.
I use my SV gear for more than meatā¦
- Homebrewed beer ā pasteurizing yeast starters, pasteurizing honey
- De-crystallizing honey
- Reheating all kinds of leftovers. Why nuke leftovers in the microwave, overcooking bits, when I can reheat them to exactly the desired temperature?
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Yes! We use ours for that, too. Also a great way to thaw frozen foods for conventional methods.
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This is cool! I thought about getting one but I have a Sous Vide gadget already. I use my Instant Pot Smart to Sous Vide. It works amazing and The Instant Pot does so many other things! Plus it syncs to my phone telling me when my food is ready! Itās a week day dinner saver!
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Okay Sous Vide peopleā¦
I had read topics on the forum that informed me of this technique existing. Then I happened to watch a cooking blip on YouTube which showed faux sous vide. Gave it a shot by setting my range top at a simmer and using a candy thermometer. Did up some chicken around 150 F, and the wife was impressed.
So, now I am looking at getting a proper Sous Vide setup so I can try doing chicken at 140 and numerous other things (Forgot about chocolate, that will be good since I am also building a vacuum former right now). But the wife wants to replace our crock pot.
I see TONS of results about making a crock pot serve as Sous Vide, and mostly it is saying that crock pots arenāt as reliable for temperature stability and work at higher temperatures.
Problem is, I am trying to find out if you can use a Sous Vide system (like this one) to do the same things you normally do in a crock pot. I assume you can, but am not sure if there are higher temperatures required, or problems cleaning other than water out of the main unit.
Having the ability to start/stop and monitor the cooking from a web app while out of the house would be nice. But mostly, she just wants a crock pot and I want a sous vide. As mentioned (long ago) by some in this thread, the app control is cute, but possibly of limited actual value (the remote start/stop has often come up as desirable when we have had crock pot meal cooking, but wanted to come home later than originally planned)
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I would be more apt to use a connected Crock pot. My Anova is the Bluetooth model and after the first couple uses I found it just as easy to set it with the dial and not bother with the app. I trust it to be at temp and just set it and walk away till what ever timer I happened to use goes off.
I believe Iāve posted a link to this device before but it really looks like a good value. Iāve used Monoprice for many purchased and have never been disappointed. It is unfortunately currently out of stock.
https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=21594
The one argument Iād make for having a separate appliance for Crock and Sou Vide cooking is that youāre not just tied to one size vessel for the Sou Vide cooking.
These are the listed āFeaturesā for the monoprice one.
Note you can go up to a 4 gallon water bathā¦
+41 ~ +212Ā°F (+5 ~ +100Ā°C) temperature range
800 watts maximum cooking power
Ā±1% temperature stability
2.25 gallons (8.50 liters) per minute circulation pump
4.0 gallon maximum bath size
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Crock pots can run at much higher temperatures than youād do with sos vide. Food in a crock pot can actually simmer whereas a sous vide machine wonāt let you run that hot.
I would never buy a sous vide machine that had its own attached water bath. They take up too much space and are inflexible. Get the stick variety and use the pots and picnic coolers you likely already own. If you also need a crock pot, get an Instant Pot and it acts as crock pot, rice cooker, and pressure cooker all in one.
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canāt begin to second this enough.
although to be completely accurate, itās slow cooker, not crock pot. there are some subtle differences.
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I canāt speak to that particular model, but I do have a Sous Vide Supreme. It is one of my favorite purchases. I have used it religiously ever since I bought it (mainly for meats). I canāt say enough great things about it. Itās even changed my restaurant habitsā¦ I get so disappointed now when we go out and spend $100 and the food isnāt as good as our home made stuff.
As far as crock pots, not that Iāve researched the hacks people are doing, but I can think of two things to watch out forā¦
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As someone just pointed out, Iām not sure you get the same temperature range that you would with a dedicated sous vide system.
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Temperature stability. A sous vide system will maintain your set temperature to within a degree (without all the ups and downs), which is kind of the point of sous vide cooking. Once youāve gone over the intended temperature, you kind of loose the affect.
Hope that helps! 
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