Just received my Anova (Wifi) today and cooking my first dinner in it as we speak. I was just curious as to why the app needs precise GPS location to set up a new cooker? Surely the circulator doesn’t have GPS in it, and could do the setup over bluetooth. It seems like an unnecessary invasion of privacy to know the precise location of every cooker…
Very curious as I do not recall this at all and I just set mine up yesterday morning. Mine is also the higher end model (wifi+bt).
Interesting… Do you use the android app too? It very explicitly popped up a notification that it was going to ask for location access in order to connect to the Anova, and then if I declined, it would not connect. I gave it permission and then went into settings and revoked it after the fact. It still seems to be connected, so not sure if this will cause issues down the road.
Just wait until v3.8.1 comes out, it wants to know what brand of vacuum you own. 
Heh…
In my case it was the iOS app. Wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the reason. I have seen a few android apps request a lot more access to the device than the iOS counterpart.
I am an IT professional and I would also like to know Anova’s answer. It has been 5 months since your question was posted without a response from them. Very troubling.
Hey Khang! Recent updates to the Google Android API (level 23) affecting Bluetooth LE technology requires location permissions to be granted in order to use the Anova Android application.
Thanks for responding Alyssa.
Noted on Google’s API location setting requirements. Is Anova or Google collecting information from our apps or devices?
If yes, what information is being collected and how is it being used?
Thanks
I think this is totally untrue. No other Bluetooth app requires location.
Please give technical data to support this?
Can you state under oath as a representative of Anova that they are not collecting data on us?
I’m not certain this addresses this discussion precisely, but I did a quick search and found a hopefully relevant discussion.
“After upgrading to Android version 6.0 Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) scanning will only work if Location services are enabled on the device.”
“This issue was brought up to Google where they responded saying that this was the intended behavior and they won’t fix it. They directed developers to this site where it points out that location permission is now needed for hardware identifier access. It is now the developer’s responsibility to make their users aware of the requirement.”
For the full post see this link