- cross-posted to:
- mildlyinfuriating@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- mildlyinfuriating@lemmy.world
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I used the app once when I first got mine and never needed it again. I haven’t had a need for it as I start it, and then come back later. If I need a timer I can set one on my phone.
I mean they can ask, lol
I forgot my ANOVA when I moved this summer. Now, I’m not that sorry I did.
I have never bought an appliance or physical product that requires an app to use, and I never will until our society has deteriorated to the the point where there is no alternative to that in order to get by in it. It’s almost at that point already with smartphones but for now it’s still possible to get by without one.
This is the absolute worst possible way for me to first hear about a product and company that I would have otherwise been interested in
Same. I’ve been thinking of replacing the cheap immersion circulator we have, and was going to go with Anova. This blatant enshittification is enough to make me look elsewhere.
I’ve had one for years, use it often and honestly didn’t know it had an app until today.
Fair point. I just don’t like the move, and don’t want to support a company doing it. Even putting that aside, it really makes me worried that they’re at the point that they’re trying to ride on their reputation while increasing profit margins. It makes me think that, if I buy their newer models, they’re more likely to cheap out but charge more.
I have two Anova cookers and have never needed the app fwiw
I honestly didn’t know there was an app and use mine a few times a month.
For those of us on Android, can’t we download the old APK which still talks Bluetooth and just never interact with the web/wifi for these?
The app phones home to access recipes.
Maybe it works without access to the server, but maybe it just refuses to do anything.
I wish people would stop threatening companies switching to subscription that they’ll lose business. The c-suite know they’ll lose much of the current customer base. They’re banking on the data telling them that the market acceptance of their product is gaining traction with new customers.
That will float them until they tell grandfathered users to go screw themselves and will face all sorts of new charges to use their app as previously established.
This is what happens when you have companies run by MBAs and lawyers. They respond to the data, and as long as the data says any negative responses can be overcome in some other way, they’ll do it. They don’t care about their clientele (or their employees for that matter). They care about the extra millions of dollars they were promised for the degrees they paid for.
Start finding alternate solutions to any product that connects to the internet. Then they can’t spy on you or handcuff a sub fee to their product.
Were gonna need to pirate sous vides now
You know, This kind of shit happens so frequently anymore that if you’re dumb enough to buy things that, for absolutely no reason, requires an internet connection and/or an app… Then you deserve what you get.
Yes let’s make this the consumers’ fault, what with their limitless power in this dystopian fuckscape
“Its not my fault that I bought a stupid device for $$$Texas more than a normal product and created the market for it, its their fault for making it available for me to choose to buy!”
Gross oversimplification of a complex issue by a corpo bootlicker? Color me shocked…
They control the market, idiot. As well as the regulatory mechanisms for it.
Yes, because a corpo bootlicker is gonna tell you to stop buying their overpriced crap and creating a market for it
Cause corpo bootlickers are notorious for wanting to harm the companies that do stupid and/or bad
Fucking galaxy brain over here, thinking hes a genius cause hes a literal parrot repeating tidbits of what other people said without any consideration for thought or context.
You can’t keep throwing money at these awful companies, buying these awful products, and expect them to fucking stop. at some point you’re gonna have to fucking admit you’re gonna have to make a sacrifice and actually fucking speak with your wallet.
There there, you are very smart, now piss off
It’s sometimes hard to find, I needed a new stove, all the ones I could afford and that had what we needed had a fucking internet connection. I fucking hate it.
I’m not being sarcastic or attacking or anything, but I find that hard to believe. I spent 2 minutes before posting this looking at ranges and ovens (I dont know if you’re talking about a complete stove unit (burners on top of an oven in a self contained stand alone package) or the oven unit that mounts into a wall, so I looked at both in that time) and I found tons that were cheap (well, cheap as far as these devices ago at least) and none of them had smart connectivity.
It wasnt until I was getting into the high cost items that were $5000+ that smart stuff started appearing.
I wish! The entire range is what we needed, had to be propane compatible, it was around 1k, at home depot. I genuinely try to avoid IoT bull shit.
Almost all ranges are propane compatible but will require the effort of installing the (included) propane conversion kit. The exception is Frigidaire, where the kit has to be purchased separately.
FYI, most of Whirlpool’s range lineup (including Amana, Maytag and the non-“Pro” KitchenAid models), all of Frigidaire’s range lineup, most of GE’s base line range lineup (not Profile or Café) do not have Wi-Fi capability. It’s mostly Samsung and LG pathologically putting connectivity into everything they make.
What features did you need that you couldn’t avoid connectivity? I just queried my own product database and came up with 202 models that are LP compatible without purchase of a kit and do not have Wi-Fi capability. 261 if you’re willing to countenance Frigidaire. And even among most of those that do have connectivity (KitchenAid’s “Pro” models being an irritating exception) you don’t need to connect to Wi-Fi or use the app for any functionality of the appliance; it’s just an extra.
I’m happy you were able to find all those example. I couldn’t. It’s too late in any case.
Are you shopping at best buy?
No, home depot.
Find a scratch and dent place near you. Thats pretty much where I get all my appliances. Often the cosmetic issues are not even noticable, and if they are, they are often in a place that you wont see since they’ll be hidden by cabinets or what have you.
I’m quite remote, there aren’t very many options where I am, otherwise that would have been a great option. But whatever it was, it would have had to be compatible with propane which makes it a bit trickier.
Username checks out
Hey, I may be a random idiot, but I’ve never fuckin paid a 300%+ premium for a smart device, nor cried when it predictably either died early or started charging for use because corporate fuckery.
You had the choice to not buy it, You can not in the year 2024, not be aware of how this shit always, inevitably goes down.
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.
“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.
I would see if there’s a way to disable updates for that app.
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.
That’s bullshit
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 one, and didn’t know it had an app.
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.
LOL they absolutely don’t and mine does not have one or I never would have bought it. I don’t buy anything that requires an app to function.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Ten years before they pulled this. Hopefully the cookers can be used without the app.
The funniest thing about this is a anovas app is practically f****** useless.
It has maybe two thirds of the things I ever want to cook in it. I end up looking times and temperatures up on the internet anyway. And it’s maximum utility is to set the temperature and timer which you can do from the unit itself easily. Honestly more easily.
This right here. The app is absolutely useless and unnecessary. Just don’t use it.
Lol. Hell no.
Oh good, it’s not the joule. That would suck big time. You can only use it via the app.
That was my first thought as well. I love that thing but I hate that it requires the app to run
Yeah. I have two different sticks. A cheap one because “no way is the joule that good” and the joule because “shit, maybe it is”.
And it is. But an interface on the stick would make it perfect.
It’s not the Joule… Yet
Good thing there are other good options out there by now. That would be a deal breaker for sure.
Enshittification strikes again. 🤬
