Hit up support@anovaculinary.com so our tech team can figure out what the problem is. If you already have, let them know that the troubleshooting help isn’t working and they’ll handle it from there.
I recently received an APC with Bluetooth and Wifi. I love the cooker and hate both the electronic interfaces. I was thrilled to find this thread which made me realize that I wasn’t alone!!! I thought that maybe something was wrong with my APC.
I have a Google Pixel 2Xl, a state of the art phone, which can’t maintain a Bluetooth connection to the APC. Apparently, the app was written so that the connection is lost whenever the phone’s display turns off. This sure isn’t a problem with the Bluetooth link with my Honda so it’s obvious that Bluetooth apps don’t have to be written this way. When my phone disconnects from the APC it usually won’t restore the connection without me turning off the APC which is a real nuisance.
Frankly, I am sorry I paid the extra money for the WiFi version of the APC, except for the extra 100 watts of cooking power. I don’t know why remote control of the device is so important. The manual interface isn’t intuitive, but I’ve seen worse. I’m a really “techie” sort of guy and the APC’s remote interface is the worst I have come across in many years. IMHO what you’ve done is provide a remote control because it is “in”, not because it adds a needed element to the APC experience.
BTW, when I did call Customer Service for support I learned something that I can’t find documented anywhere. Nowhere do I see it stated that the timer can’t be reset unless the device is off. If you try to reset the timer from the phone app with the device running it acts like it’s trying to make the change but can’t manage to do it. Why not a simple error message that says :“Timer can’t be adjusted while APC is operating.” That would have saved me a lot of wasted effort!!
It isn’t. Don’t use it. Problem solved.
That’s like pressing the WiFi icon causes the Anova to try a reconnect
I accidentally started the app this morning by fat-fingering a tap on my phone. The Anova is sitting in a cupboard, not plugged in. Below is what I got. Note the “Keeping warm” time. It wasn’t just static. Instead, it was faithfully counting up the seconds. Just awesome!
Woah that’s really weird. Do you have iOS or Android? I’ll file a bug with the team.
That’s on iOS, current version of the app.
Heck Michi, I’m sure it’s working just fine! Your cupboard was exceptionally warm, wasn’t it!
Thank you - I’ll file a bug with the team.
More bizarre behaviour from the app…
Last night, I turned on my APC (manually) for a cook. Didn’t use the app, didn’t use the timer on the device. I just turned it on.
This morning, I started the Anova app (again, fat-fingering a tap) while my phone was in bluetooth range. Here is what I got:
Interesting. So, the temperature is correct, and had been at 68 ºC all night. I don’t know where the 16 minute timer value comes from. It might have been an old value that was there previously, when I was still trying to use the app and decided to keep something warm for a while longer.
At any rate, the timer was counting down, even though I never asked for it to be started. I killed the app and thought no more of it.
Lo and behold, just under sixteen minutes later, the APC started beeping. Incessantly, of course, because it is apparently still deemed acceptable by Anova to beep every few seconds, forever. As it happened, my wife was teaching a yoga class (with four students in deep meditation at the time) in the living area, which adjoins the kitchen in our open-plan house. Just great. I ended up having to add to the disturbance by walking right through the class to make the APC stop beeping.
I honestly don’t know who writes the software for Anova. But as a software engineer with 38 years of experience, I can assure you that the person is incompetent. This app is the worst train wreck I’ve seen in many years.
@michihenning Don’t worry, it’s all under control… @AlyssaWOAH has filed the bug with the team!! #FeelingAccomplished #SmallTeam (never forget that fact) #patience #ComingSoonIn2020
Just come back in a year or two, they might have figured it out by then 
Whoa, that’s some comically bad user experience there. I teach a user interface design class and this would be a fantastic example of terrible user experience for my students!
You do realize that your only advantage over the Joule is that you have a manual interface, right? Better put some effort into making it usable.
And for the love of gawd, enough with the incessant beeping, as @michihenning so eloquently pointed out.
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Actually @LeaVerou you left out the additional advantage of the Anova being 50 USD or more less expensive than the Joule!
The best advantage the Joule has over the Anova as far as I’m concerned is that it is “watertight”, though for me it’s not worth the lack of on-board display and controls and a 50 USD or higher price tag.
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I prefer the Anova over the Joule because of the manual controls. That way, I don’t need a phone to operate the device, and it’ll continue to work even if Anova goes out of business and no longer updates the app. If ChefSteps goes out of business, as soon as the phone OS advances far enough for the app to no longer work, that’s the end of the Joule as well.
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So, 2 and a half years and this is still a problem. Whoever said their job was to bring feedback to devs is doing a hell of a job…
Just bought the BT version, timer doesn’t even start automatically when the water gets up to temperature, I have to open the app and connect again.
@garakawa I’m not sure, but if I were to hazard a guess regarding this I think it might be that just because the temp has been reached doesn’t mean you will have put the food in right away. I guess the idea is that you drop in the food, then kick off the timer. This is just a guess that this is the thinking behind this.
Update: I guess I need to correct my own post as I just noticed the “Timer starts automatically after preheating” message that is displayed! Okay, looks like it’s just plain broke!
The timer function is pretty much just a add on courtesy reminder. You’re much better off running a manual timer for anything that is time critical. But one of the real selling points of sous vide is that time isn’t critical with most things. An extra hour on 99% of cooks will make little to no difference.
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Courtesy is the timer in my range, this one is more like an easter egg, because of how unintuitive it is to get to it. I have to hold the start button until my temp unit is changed, keep holding until the timer button is enabled and THEN I can start a whole another set of presses and holds to set the timer.
Yeah… The one on the control head of the unit feels much like an afterthought. I finished up investing in a TimeStick Trio for when I’m in a cooking frenzy. But I pretty much only use it when I’m doing eggs sous vide.
I know this was from way back, but I actually wanted to check if this was still an issue for you? Are you still seeing this happen?