How to calibrate my unit with the app

In your previous emails you mentioned that early units may need to be re-calibrated and that the app would take care of that. Now that the app has launched how do I make sure that my Anova Precision Cooker is calibrated correctly?

@nicknicknick Once you’ve paired your unit, go to the settings and you’ll see the option to calibrate. This is where you can re-calibrate if you believe your system is off a few degrees. There are some users who have tested their device against other thermometers and believe their Precision Cooker is off, which is why they re-calibrate. Chances are, yours is okay but we’ll have more info on our Help Desk for this next week.

I found that, but the only thermometer I have in my house is a meat thermometer, which I’m guessing wouldn’t give me the most accurate reading in water. I did try it though and it showed that my Anova was 1.5 degrees off, but again, using a meat thermometer to calibrate it probably isn’t the best idea, so if it really is off I’m worried that it will be even more off (or just still off) if I try to recalibrate it.

@nicknicknick Agreed, your meat thermometer isn’t the best frame of reference but it’s decent to compare against if you think your unit is 5+ off, which we have seen in some cases with earlier devices. Since the meat thermometer is only reading a temp. discrepancy of 1.5 degrees, I’d say your Precision Cooker is the more accurate of the two and not in need of re-calibration.

Hope this helps and if you do choose to re-calibrate, let me know! I’d love to hear about your experience doing so to get an understanding of the ease of the feature’s use. Thank you!

Has anybody ever tried to calibrate their units against an ice bath, a la the calibration instructions for the thermapen?

@jshannon I’ve tried to do it with slush ice - not very successfully. One thing is to use with a single point in thermopen, and another for pretty big device like Anova - you need to reach an equilibrium somehow. And there is a firmware bug in reporting low temperatures: http://community.anovaculinary.com/discussion/comment/1586/ , though if you use any of the apps it wouldn’t matter (the apps report temperature correctly, unlike the Anova’s display).