Anova Culinary 12+

This app works great with the Anova Pro. My husband can set up the Anova while I’m at work and I can see on the app if all the settings are correct. I even get an alert when it’s up to temp. I can make changes to the settings and start or stop it from anywhere!
The only real criticism I have is in searching for recipes on the app. To me one of the most important parts of researching a new recipe is reading other users comments. The app allows you to see the overall recipe’s rating. But you can’t read the comments about the recipe. You have to sign into the full website to get the comments. It makes searching for recipes on the app pretty much useless for me. Since I won’t try out a new recipe without seeing that feedback first. That info is incredibly useful and can save you a lot of trial and error. Please make the comments available on the app!

Update: So, Anova is not only dropping support for my older cooker for no good reason (couldn’t just let it keep working as is?) they now want people to pay a SUBSCRIPTION FEE?! Get lost, Anova! No chance I’ll EVER buy one of your products again.

Just opened the app to start a cook and I’m welcomed by a lovely little message that Anova is ARBITRARILY REMOVING THE ABILITY TO CONNECT MY COOKER TO THE APP?! Why? There is no reason for this other than greed. You just lost a fan of your brand. Bad look, Anova. Seriously. I don’t buy things that are meant to be thrown away before their useful life is over. I’ve ditched SONOS and LL Bean for doing exactly what you’re doing now. THERE IS NO GOOD REASON TO NOT ALLOW THE CURRENT APP TO CONTINUE WORKING AS IT IS - ASIDE FROM A MONEY GRAB. I will DEFINITELY be looking at another brand of cooker when this one fails, but I’ll have to see how long I’m willing to deal without having the app to set things up or reference recipes. So sick of companies deciding when I’m done being able to use a perfectly functional item through planned obsolescence. We’re already dealing with far too much waste in our society and companies that do this sort of thing ought to be ashamed of causing further damage. BUYER BEWARE: ANOVA IS NOT A TRUSTWORTHY BRAND AND WILL DECIDE FOR YOU WHEN YOU’RE DONE USING A PERFECTLY GOOD PRODUCT JUST BECAUSE THEY WANT TO MAKE AN EXTRA DOLLAR OFF OF YOU. THERE’S PLENTY OF OTHER FISH IN THE SOUS VIDE SEA.

As others have pointed out, sous vide cooking is a game changer and Anova’s wand works well enough. However, Anova also wants to encourage users to enter and share their own recipes with other users. Here, the app is frustrating beyond belief. On the mobile app, you can enter and edit steps but you can’t edit make a private recipe public. Also, you can reorder steps — but only if there aren’t so many of them that they fill one screen on your device. Because if they do, you can’t actually scroll to it to select and reorder it. On the other hand, you CAN change a private recipe to public by logging in to Anova online, where you can also enter and edit steps. But at the online site you CAN’T reorder steps. Since any time you want to enter a new step they get entered as the last step, not being able to do this easily is a major oversight.

All in all, creating and managing recipes is an exercise in frustration. It’s a shame because a bit of attention to the UI could fix these issues and encourage a more social and useful platform.
And as far as I can see, there’s no way to make a recipe “public” if it starts out “private”. Who would want to share a recipe before you test it yourself? Stupid.