I received mine and it worked fine for awhile. I was doing about my third long cook, 72 hour short ribs. About 32 hours in, I awoke to the unit making a strange noise and bags that were majorly bloated. A Thermapen check of the water temp indicated 210 degrees F while the display read 135/135. Somehow it malfunctioned and basically boiled $95 worth of beef. I submitted a support ticket on 11/15, but haven’t heard anything yet. Meanwhile I’m back to using my cobbled together DIY rig, which has never had a failure in over 1,000 hours of cook time. I’m kicking myself for ordering a second unit with the $50 off promo they sent to kickstarter backers.
Ouch @steiny I feel your pain! Like you I also have a ghetto DIY rig that never failed. My kickstarter unit#1 is having issue with temp reading higher than both of my Thermapens, unit#2 is ETA December.
@steiny That is pretty much exactly what happened in my case as well. In my case though it didn’t happen till about 60 hours in or so and it was only $20 worth of beef. I submitted at ticket about it on 11/9 and received a reply on 11/18. I got the fedex label to send it back yesterday. The boiled short ribs made for some pretty good bbq beef sandwiches even though that wasn’t exactly what I was aiming for.
I have a unit and it has performed perfectly in my couple of uses in the week I’ve had it. There’s a minor corrosion issue that is also posted on this forum, but other than that, it is great.
@Soygen, if you’re getting the corrosion please post in that thread and provide pictures. Also send the same to anova support.
@canugghead and @elangomatt at least it sounds like they eventually respond and stand behind the warranty. I’d done some chuck roasts for 48 hours with no problem. It was a Restaurant Depot size package of short ribs (4 plates of chuck). I cooled them and froze for future use in chili or something. I’m sure it’ll be fine for that, but not the medium rare I was dreaming of serving for a nice Sunday dinner.
The thing that really scares me is that there is likely a software glitch that caused it, as the unit appeared to correctly read temperature after unplugging and plugging back in. I just can’t trust the thing now.
@mspeleoto I already posted in that thread, but I will take a picture of it this weekend when I use the Precision.
If the firmware on these units user upgradeable? If the units don’t fail hard but are flaky during the cook it sure sounds to me like a firmware issue. It’d be a shame to have the fancy software/bluetooth features and have an early unit with flaky firmware that has to be returned to the factory for repair.
Mine is still working although it crackles while heating up (after a 5-10 minutes it stops). I only check occupationally now though 
@eelhc no I don’t believe you’d be able to update the firmware unless you disassembled the unit or their app allows it via bt (doubtful).
The temperature calibration on mine seems to be only a minor bit off but I don’t have a precise way to measure it - I bought the 3rd party app and it’s working marvelously.
@eelhc no I don't believe you'd be able to update the firmware unless you disassembled the unit or their app allows it via bt (doubtful).
Too bad… Anova really should look into this.
Just received my two new units today. I put my Anova One in a bath with the first of my new Anova Precisions to test the temps and they are reading the same, so I guess they’ve solved the calibration problem, at least on the first unit. (Though they’re off by a degree from my thermopen?)
However, a question for Anova/the community - I’ve been using a 12X18 cambro for my Anova One which according to the specs can handle a 5-6 gallon tank. So I can fill near the max (about 3-1/2 inches from the top) and add my product and still fall within the specs. The new Precisions can only heat a 4-5 gallon tank, which allows me to fill the same cambro only a little over half way. Am I correct that this limitation only applies to the water volume - ie, that if I put 5 gallons of water in the tank, then add product, it will still function properly? Do I need to use a smaller tank with the Precision?
- Maybe Anova can recommend what size Cambro to use with the new unit?
Just received my two new units today. I put my Anova One in a bath with the first of my new Anova Precisions to test the temps and they are reading the same, so I guess they've solved the calibration problem, at least on the first unit. (Though they're off by a degree from my thermopen?) However, a question for Anova/the community - I've been using a 12X18 cambro for my Anova One which according to the specs can handle a 5-6 gallon tank. So I can fill near the max (about 3-1/2 inches from the top) and add my product and still fall within the specs. The new Precisions can only heat a 4-5 gallon tank, which allows me to fill the same cambro only a little over half way. Am I correct that this limitation only applies to the water volume - ie, that if I put 5 gallons of water in the tank, then add product, it will still function properly? Do I need to use a smaller tank with the Precision? - Maybe Anova can recommend what size Cambro to use with the new unit?
Someone from Anova can answer better but this really should not be an issue unless the heat losses are so great that the heater in these units can’t keep up. If you kick start or goose the water bath then both these units I suspect would have no issues maintaining temperature.
- Start with hot tap water in your cooking vessel
- boil some water in a kettle or pot
- with an instant read thermometer, add boiling water to the vessel until the desired temperature is reached.
- Start the Anova unit
- once you add the food then the temperature will drop, just add more boiling water slowly until the desired temperature is reached
I’ll bet that either of the Anova units can keep the desired temperature even in a 48 quart (12 gallon) cooler. Barely kicking on once in a while. All it has to do is to make up for the heat going into the food and escaping from the vessel to ambient air.
I was wondering this exact thing myself. I was also wondering if insulating the cooking vessel would put less work on the cooker.
@gwendelen… That’s exactly what I’m going to do …insulate the vessel… Going to head over to Home Depot and pick up some Reflextix insulation as @joshmasur suggested and make a sleeve for the 12 qt cambro… Hoping it will keep decrease evaporation on long cooks… Also, I was thinking about getting a lid but I’m not good with tools so, cutting a hole for the anova might be an issue for me so, I was thinking of getting a piece of Styrofoam isulation board and cutting a hole in that for the Anova
@saluki that sounds like a great plan. Although I’m not sure it will decrease evaporation. I don’t think you can do that without a lid as, even with a lid you wouldn’t actually decrease evaporation, just collect the condensation. At least I think that’s the case. Don’t really know. But I think it sounds like a good plan, and I’ll prolly work out something similar eventually to retain heat and keep the energy usage down and make the machine run less.
Great idea on the insulation. I got the lid with my cambro and just used a Dremel to cut a small opening just big enough for the cooker.
Thanks for the input, will try the insulation idea too. I was surprised to see the differing specs for the new units, should have paid more attention when I jumped to order them. I’m going to run it in a large cambro for a couple of hours when I can keep an eye on it and test the temp at a couple of different points in the bath. I was thinking that with a bath larger than specified there might be some risk of uneven temperatures but maybe that’s not really an issue.
I got my replacement Anova Precision Cooker recently and it looks like it is good so far. My first one had the issue where the temperature stopped being updated so it basically overheated a batch of short ribs about 60 hours in. It was also off by one degree too low but I would not have sent it back just for the temp being off. I haven’t had time to do any long cooks with it yet but this precision cooker temp looks to be dead on as tested with my Thermapen which has had its calibration checked recently.
(For anyone looking up the date of my last posting about my cooker, it took a long time for my replacement to arrive because it took ME a long time to get my old one to FedEx. Once I received a reply to my support email Anova has been very prompt with the replies and they sent the replacement quickly after I sent the old one in.)
Mine has arrived. Ordered sept 6 black 110v from website.
I received my unit last week. I’ve used it to make Salmon twice, and Eggs twice. It worked great, as far as I could tell. We’ll be cooking more coming up.