My experiences after a few weeks

Yes I see others also. Weird indeed.

I can’t help but wonder if they all came from the same batch and there’s a problem with the formulation of the plastic used.

Rubber and sulfur (vulcanizing the rubber to make it durable) makes sense but shouldn’t emit odors.

I only use the cooker in manual mode.

I just receive an email from Anova support. They are sending me a replacement unit. I’m not required to send the existing one back; instead, I was asked to take it to an e-waste centre and to provide a photo of the receipt.

I have no idea whether they hand out receipts for something as small as this; it’s a giant government waste facility. I guess I can always take a selfie with me and my old Anova in front of giant pile of electronics gear that’s about to be scrapped :slight_smile:

Full marks for Anova customer support! That was a very fast and unbureaucratic way of addressing my problem.

Fingers crossed that the next one won’t smell… :slight_smile:

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I’m glad it all worked out! Keep us posted about the next unit you get. :slight_smile:

I received the replacement cooker today.

The new unit has no smell. I can’t smell a thing unless I stick my nose right against the black portion but, even then, it just smells vaguely of rubber and plastic, whereas the smell from the previous one filled the room. So, all good, totally happy with that.

The plastic cap on the replacement unit was removable with some effort (and rubber gloves). After getting it off, I locked and re-opened the cap a few times, and now it moves a bit more easily, so I can deal with it without putting on gloves. Again, all good, I’m totally happy with that. (I also went back to the original unit and tried again to remove the plastic cap and, no matter how hard I try, I still can’t budge it.)

I have to say that my support experience has been very positive. I received the replacement quickly and without fuzz, no questions asked.

BTW, just for fun, I placed both the old and new unit into the same pot of water, set them both to the same temperature, and turned both of them on. The reading for the actual temperature on the two units is identical. No disagreement at all, not even to 0.1 degrees Celsius. It appears that the thermometers are very precise.

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Yay! I am glad it all worked out. Yeah, that smell problem was totally not a normal thing. And it looks like this unit you have now doesn’t have a stubborn plastic cap like the the old unit you had. That’s good.

Awesome!

:heart_eyes:

You are almost certainly trying to unscrew the end cap in the wrong direction. They are designed with threads in the opposite direction to the sleeve. This is so that you can unscrew them without also unscrewing the sleeve. The caps take very little pressure to unscrew and the natural tendency is to attempt to unscrew them in the same direction that you just unscrewed the sleeve.

it’s a bit like a Chinese finger trap: to release you have to do the opposite of what your instincts are telling you.

It’s not really necessary to even think about what direction is the correct one: just grip the sleeve in the left-hand and use moderate pressure on the end cap in alternate directions. as you twist in the wrong direction nothing will happen and as you twist in the correct direction it will readily release.

The design of the grip is such that they cannot be over tightened. This is a case of very good design with less than optimal communication.

the best solution would be to both note in the instructions that the sleeve and end cap screw in opposite directions and to put an “<- on off ->” on both the sleeve and the end cap.

PS I’ve only worked with mine cold (because I haven’t yet been able to overcome the low water alarm going off immediately and preventing both the circulator and heating element working (or maybe one of them is defective and that causes the LWA to go off). So maybe the end caps do become difficult to take off when the unit is hot (due to expansion of the stainless steel sleeve).

I just got my WIFI Anova last night and I had the same issue.

As soon as I opened the box I smelled this STRONG chemical odor.

The odor was so strong that it gave me a faint headache.

I promptly put it back in the box and went to bed, not wanting the headache to get any worse.

This morning I woke smelling the same smell then I realized that it was my hands that is smelling like that. I tried washing my hands using my usual Softsoap (many times) and my hands still reeks of the chemical smell.

Right now I have the Anova unit out in the back yard to air out. Not sure if it will do any good but there is NO WAY I am letting that near my food smelling like that.

I called customer service and the CS agent told me that it is normal to have some smell and if I want I should return it to Amazon for a replacement. My problem with that is by returning it to Amazon there is no guarantee that the replacement will not have the same issue.

This is my first Anova product and this is not a good start.

It seems you didn’t read my follow-up post:

So, I am not only almost, but completely certain that I was trying to unscrew the end cap in the correct direction.

the endcap screws off in the opposite direction as the sleeve. There is a good reason for this as it ensures that if you are trying to remove only the endcap you don’t take the sleeve off with it, but IMHO, ANOVA should make this more clear in the instructions and video and possibly Mark both the sleeve and the endcap with the appropriate directions ("<-on off->")

The design is excellent, IMHO, in that it makes it impossible to over tighten either one.

If confused about which direction to turn, just twist it back and forth. as long as one hand is holding the sleeve and the other is holding the display when trying to remove the sleeve, or the endcap when try remove the endcap twisting it in the wrong direction will have no effect and will not further tighten what you are trying to release.

When cold, both the sleeve and the end cap release with very moderate pressure. It may be more difficult release at high temperatures due to the stainless steel expanding. The solution for that would probably be just running cold water over the stainless steel (but of course not the display section!) For a few seconds.

A simple way to remember (for the stainless cylinder) is to grip the top with one hand, the bottom with the other and twist your thumbs towards each other. (provided the “head” side is up) :wink:

Once you have the base off, you can look down the cylinder to see how the end cap is locked on. :slight_smile:

Of the two units I have had in my hands, one was very easy to pull apart and one felt like someone had used Loctite on it. Tolerances vary in all manufacturing.

I just got mine today and OMG, I got one of the stinky ones!

This is not just a “new device smell”, this thing stunk up my entire house with an overpowering odor. Gave my wife a headache and made me want to gag. Had to put it out on the patio table because we can’t stand to have it in the house.

I put in a ticket to Anova support, so we’ll see how it goes.

I had to chime in on the annoying beep, beep, beep. This is where a snooze feature is needed. Just tap the face of Anova on the app and the beeps go away for a while, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever. That could be in the settings. You can stop the beeps if you physically go into the kitchen and press the timer on the display or you can stop Anova on the app then start it again.

Not normal at all! Glad you put in a ticket for support - they’ll help ya out.

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Thanks! They reached out to me this afternoon via email requesting my invoice from Amazon and my shipping address. Impressed by the customer service so far. I’ve boxed my current unit back up and stuck in the garage for the time being.

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Yay! Our customer support team is pretty solid. They’ll make sure you’re being taking care of. :slight_smile:

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I have the same problem… my unit smells so bad I can’t store it inside the house, even still after a week or so.

I at first thought it was just a new device smell. Strong enough my wife also commented when she came home to me in the middle of my first cook.

I can’t believe googling this actually revealed a common problem.