Hello!
I just received the Anova Nano for Christmas! The inaugural run was a pair of rib-eyes and I must say, they were they best steaks I have ever eaten. Since then, we have done lobster, crawfish stuffed halibut, chicken breast, and squash. All delicious, but also in need of fine tuning which I fully expect. Decided to take a stab at Osso Bucco. Setup the bath to run for 36 hours at 169F. Sometime in the night, the unit lost power. Woke up this morning to find the power restored, but the bath down to 99F and the timer completely reset(how I determined the power was lost). We roll with these punches, especially since no one wants to start the New Year being bummed out at the loss of $40 in ruined food. I then moved forward with installing the app figuring there were advanced features that would help prevent future issues like this one. In testing, I found there doesn’t seem to be any form of notification to alert me to a loss of power or even that power has resumed and the timer is no longer set. The ChefStep Joule has a resume feature which seems like a no brainer. Now as I ponder the future and how to successfully poach tougher pieces of meat for longer periods a worry sets in that overnight cooking may be fraught with the perils of having to wake every 2 hours to insure the power is still on and circulation at the correct temp continues. Help me to have confidence with your device in Soud Vide all the things!!
1.) Does the Nano have a resume feature should circulation be unexpectedly interrupted?
2.) Is there a notification or way to set up a notification to alert me to the device being returned to power with its timer reset?
3.) If the Nano connects to the app/phone via Blutooth, why do instructions prompt me to be connected via Wireless? My wireless is super locked down, so there is no way the Nano is connected to it. To my knowledge, Blutooth does not need wifi, it is it’s own separate protocol.
4.) Overall, is there a sure fire way to troubleshoot/prevent this problem from happening in the future?
Thanks for listening and any/all help/guidance provided!! Happy New Year to everyone!
It’s actually a safety feature that the APC does NOT resume after a power outage (your food could have been in the danger zone for too long and be harmful) - you would be unaware and potentially get a nasty dose of food poisoning.
The way to mitigate this is with a UPS (uninterruptible power supply). If you want one that will keep the APC running for a prolonged period, you want one that supports about 1500kVa.
Anova would have to change the internals of their appliances to make them aware of a power outage and notify their cloud when this happens (amongst other things, they’d have to put a battery on their system board) - just about the only way that you could keep from having false positives. (don’t want people throwing their food out because someone turned off their wireless access point or modem).
The app is the same for all of Anova’s appliances - both those supporting only bluetooth as well as the wifi/bluetooth APC.
Edit: One more thing that can help mitigate the loss of power - if you use an insulated vessel (such as a cooler), that is also covered, they lose heat very slowly - so it may keep your food from entering the danger zone before you notice the cook has stopped.
And, yes, Anova could provide a notification whenever the cloud connectivity is lost for the Wifi models - not the bluetooth ones such as the Nano though - they don’t have a cloud connection on their own.
It seems logical to me the App would look to maintain connectivity with the device. If that connectivity is lost, then I should be notified by the app which is already constantly updating me with temperature and time information. I understand completely not restarting circulation because of possible safety issues, but the user should be alerted one way or the other. With my Nano being only blutooth, there is no cloud to contact because the device isn’t communicating to anything but my iphone.
I’ve seen mention of a possible Anova firmware update for their products, but have not seen how to go about getting this update. Would love to know if there is one, if there is a way to update, and if there are notes on what was changed/fixed.
Haven’t seen any firmware updates for the non-Nano devices - unsure if they’ll actually be updating the firmware of the Nano.
You’re talking about the device keeping a connection via bluetooth??? So, everyone needs to be home with their phones…umm…wouldn’t you notice yourself that the power is out? 
Otherwise, you’re talking about leaving a device at home, connected to the device via bluetooth. That only works for people that are going to have a dedicated “kitchen” device I’d think.
Go back to my mention about how a loss in connectivity can result in false positives. Not something a lot of people would enjoy.
If I am asleep and the unit loses power a notification from my phone indicating it no longer has connection would suffice to wake me so I can investigate and possibly address. This can be handled by the app if programmed in to it. If the house’s power is completely off, then maybe there is nothing that can be done to save the cook.
I have no interest in leaving the house and controlling it remotely. I don’t even want to use the app and only installed it hoping for the very thing I mentioned above. Some things require longer cooking times, so its inevitable that I will try cooking something overnight.
Well, there’s lots of people that wouldn’t work with the Bluetooth devices as the range wouldn’t reach from their bedrooms to their kitchen (or wherever they’re doing their cook).
I could see Anova eventually doing that with Wifi connectivity (again, better to make hardware changes so the unit can be aware of actual power loss), but the only way to reliably do it with bluetooth would be to have a dedicated device (likely a tablet) that you leave in bluetooth range, that also has a connection to the Anova cloud (I actually suggested a “buddy system” for bluetooth devices to the Anova developers a couple years ago)
I wouldn’t hold my breath for something like that…they have a very full plate of feature requests from the user base already…
Your best bet would be to get a UPS to protect your extended cooks.
There are flaws with some of your logic here, but I do appreciate your tips on how you have troubleshot similar problems.
Hopefully Anova’s team will take the time to offer their own comments.
Thanks!
Ron, the resume feature is by your finger tip based on your sound knowledge and good judgement.
Beware of no-brainers with your food.