Sort out the app!

I bought the WiFi version recently in the hope you’ll release the SDK soon. The app is very poorly done. Here’s the thing Anova, you can either rely on your 2.5 engineers to figure out how to make good apps for it or hand it over to the thousands of creative people out there by opening up the platform to open source development.

I’m not the only one saying this but sorry I’ll drop this machine in a heartbeat for the first one that supports open source development or has a better app.

Very happy with the hardware but totally disappointed by the software.

Don’t be the next Nokia! Listen to what your customers are saying.

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We’re listening. @zqushair

We’re opening the floor to our customers to figure out what everyone wants. There’s an existing thread on this that you can check out: Anova app developers are here to listen to your requests! - #18 by AlyssaWOAH

Definitely encourage you to jot down whatever you would like changed or added to the app. It helps us a lot to hear everyone out! :slight_smile:

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That’s a nice deflection, but not at all what the OP asked for.

Allegedly listening to your customers and releasing an SDK are two different things.

@acs we’ll chat Monday.

Meh. Nothing to really chat about.

@zqushair

Here’s some more info on the SDK from last year. Spoiler alert: don’t get your hopes up.

Hey @HunterC @cdo1828 @gusAnova @NateAnova - would you guys know anything about this? :slight_smile:

@AlyssaWOAH. As @acs pointed out, what about the SDK?.

As for the existing app, sure, I can write comments about the app, such as under “Categories”, why is there a separate category for Rib Eye or Short Ribs and one for Beef? You really don’t need us telling you what those things mean and the difference between the type of meat and the type of cut. Regardless here is my suggestion for categories: 1) Start with the type of meat/food (Beef, Chicken, Fish, Pork, Duck, Lamb, Eggs, etc) and then 2) branch out into the types of cuts (fillet, rib eye, striploin, ribs, flank, shoulder, leg, etc) and then finally into 3) the different levels of doneness for that type of cut together with a recipe on how to do / what to cook with it. This stuff is just general tidying up of the app and giving it richer content. It should not take you a lot of time to do. As for features, if you’re looking for ideas, look no further than your own advertising material for the Nano. Multi cook and multi step for starters. That’s basically what most people are asking for, together with support for other platforms (hence the popular request for the SDK, since your engineers can only do so much and we respect that).

This actually brings me to the reason I came back to this board to post this. The Nano. Your announcement (email circular that you sent out today) about the Nano… Seriously??? What is the point of that? I bet it was your finance guy(s) who came up with that product idea! We know why companies do that (for financial reasons since you sit on people’s money for a long time before you have to deliver anything). Here’s a free tip: when accounting and finance run the product path of a company, that’s when it starts going pear-shaped. Why am I annoyed at the nano you may ask? Well for starters, I am sure it will just heat up a bath of water exactly like the existing Anova unit… So what is the point of it really??? And two (this is the main reason) instead of focusing your efforts on producing ONE quality device from a hardware point of view (which you already have) with a top-class feature-rich app to run it, you’re gonna end up with two half-finished products and your 2.5 engineers are going to be overwhelmed. Wrong move! Even Apple limits their product range for that reason amongst others. Here’s the sad thing, I am having to use the app of a competitor of yours (I won’t mention their name here) to figure out what temperature to cook my food at because your app is sooooo lacking and poorly laid out. Unfortunately they don’t do 220-240v devices yet… but they’re working on one. This gives you from now until your competition get their 220-240v model out to sort out your app and/or release the SDK.

I have never loved and hated something at the same time as much as this device. Amazing hardware (which begs the question why the nano?) paired with half-finished software and questionable intentions on where the management’s focus is (finish the existing product or selling a new one which does what the first one should have done in the first place!). It is such a shame, but it’s not late. You guys need to have a serious management meeting to decide where you want to go with this. We’re with you and wish you all the best… but don’t take us for granted.

PS: Pls don’t come back to me with the argument that the Nano is cheaper therefore making it affordable to more people. 100 bucks vs 200 bucks on a sous vide unit that should last for years and years isn’t a big deal for people using it with iPhones or Androids costing much more than that and lasting two/three years tops.

Sorry for the long post.

Hey @zqushair - I am looking into the SDK deal - I’ll get back to you once I find out the details!

I really appreciate all the feedback and concerns you brought up. You have a lot of understandable points. The Nano is really great addition to what we currently have (our current cookers aren’t going anywhere!)

We know the app can always be better, so it’s super important for us to get this kind of feedback. Thank you so much! And again, I will follow up about SDK. :slight_smile:

Just a heads up, someone sniffed and identified the calls made by the android app. On top of the he built a home made API: sous-vide - npm
It is a bit cumbersome to use and I don’t have time to play with it but maybe someone else can?

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