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Anova Precision Cooker review: Anova cooks up a smarter sous vide starting point

Anova's second-gen sous vide circulator gets the important stuff -- namely steak -- exactly right.

Ry Crist Senior Editor / Reviews - Labs
Originally hailing from Troy, Ohio, Ry Crist is a writer, a text-based adventure connoisseur, a lover of terrible movies and an enthusiastic yet mediocre cook. A CNET editor since 2013, Ry's beats include smart home tech, lighting, appliances, broadband and home networking.
Expertise Smart home technology and wireless connectivity Credentials
  • 10 years product testing experience with the CNET Home team
Ry Crist
7 min read

Sous vide might be this generation's slow-cooking, and Anova wants to be Crock-Pot. To that end, the brand's latest immersion circulator promises an even better design than the original , new features like Bluetooth connectivity, and a lower price point, too -- just $179, or $229 for a 220V version that'll work outside of the US (converted roughly, that's about £150, or AU$295).

8.0

Anova Precision Cooker

The Good

The Anova Precision Cooker costs less than the previous generation while delivering results that are just as delicious. A redesigned clamp lets you use it with more types of pots.

The Bad

The product's app and Bluetooth smarts don't add much of anything to the experience.

The Bottom Line

We loved the original Anova, and this one cooks just as well for less cash. Underwhelming smarts aside, it's a great sous vide starting point.

That last bit about the lower price is really the key factor here, as the sous vide space is starting to get crowded. Aside from rival startups like Nomiku , water baths like Caso and SousVide Supreme , and likable novelties from brands like Dorkfood , big players like GE are getting in the game, too, with sous vide attachments for high-end stovetops and even an induction-powered sous vide cooker called the Paragon . The sous vide secret is clearly out, and Anova is smart to position itself as one of the most affordable options of the bunch.

It's also still one of the best sous vide purchases you can make. The build improvements over the original are incremental at best, and I'm not convinced that the Bluetooth smarts are all that compelling, but at the end of the day, Anova didn't do anything to mess up what was already a very good immersion circulator -- and buying in now is as cheap as it's ever been. If you're looking specifically for a smart cooker, hold out for one with Wi-Fi (both Anova and Nomiku have them coming), but if you're just looking to bring sous vide into your kitchen, the Anova Precision Cooker is your best starting point.

Anova's second-gen cooker makes sous vide smart (pictures)

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If you aren't familiar with sous vide, it's a cooking method that suspends vacuum sealed ingredients into a water bath that's held to a precise temperature. The food gradually gets brought up to the exact desired temperature, with no risk of overcooking.

Sous vide has long been used by professional chefs and high-end restaurants, and full-size water bath units typically cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars, at very least. That's why foodies have been geeking out so hard over products like the Anova, which finally bring sous vide cooking within reach.

Gone is the Anova One's touchscreen, replaced with a rubber scroll wheel. Tyler Lizenby/CNET

Like the original Anova One, the Anova Precision Cooker clamps onto the side of your stock pot, suspending its stainless-steel bottom half (and the heating coil, circulator fan, and laboratory-grade thermometer housed within) down into the water. The heating coil heats the water to your desired temperature, then cycles on and off using the thermometer's input to hold steady at that temperature. Meanwhile, the fan circulates the water to held keep everything even.

On the first-generation Anova, you'd input the temperature on a color touchscreen. There's no such touchscreen on the Anova Precision Cooker -- instead, you'll set the temperature by scrolling a rubber wheel. Unlike the original Anova, which you could set to a tenth of a degree in Celsius mode, but only whole degrees in Fahrenheit mode, the new Anova splits the difference and dials up and down in half-degree increments in both modes.

Another subtle improvement is the way the thing clamps onto your pot. Like before, you'll turn a screw to get things nice and tight, but with the new Anova, there's a second screw, too. Loosen it, and you'll be able to rotate the device, or slide it up and down through the clamp. That gives you greater flexibility with regard to the kinds of pots you'll be able to use it with.

The big knob tightens the hold on your stock pot. The little knob lets you raise, lower or turn the cooker itself. Tyler Lizenby/CNET

Aside from those changes, this is largely the same device as before. Like the Anova One, it looks clean and modern. Cooking with it didn't feel much different than cooking with the original, and the food came out just as well-cooked, too. The important thing is that Anova was able to add slight build improvements while also bringing production costs down. As the brand's new baseline cooker, it's pretty tough to find much fault with it.

Of course, immersion circulation isn't the only way to cook sous vide on the (relative) cheap. All-in-one water bath units from names like Caso , SousVide Supreme , and SousVant might cost a little more, but they don't require a separate pot. The Paragon Induction Cooktop from GE's Firstbuild initiative is really just a single-induction burner with a wireless sous vide thermometer. It doesn't stick a heating coil or a circulation fan down into the water, instead relying on the even induction heat to keep things consistent.

An advantage with that approach is that you can cook using things other than water. Fill your pot with oil, for instance, and you can use that thermometer for automated precision deep frying. You can't do that with the Precision Cooker, or with any other immersion circulator.

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After 24 hours, this flank steak came out cooked to perfection. Tyler Lizenby/CNET

Performance and usability

First things first: you can make some truly great-tasting food using the Anova Precision Cooker. Poached eggs, salmon, flank steak -- everything I made in our test kitchen came out just the way I wanted it. Of course, the same can be said of the original Anova, or of Nomiku, or of the SousVant, or any sous vide cooker worth its salt, really. In fact, we've yet to test a sous vide cooker that was unable to hold a steady temperature, or cook a really tasty steak.

With solid performance across nearly the entire category, things like usability become significantly more important for differentiating between specific products. In the case of the Anova Precision Cooker, the basic usability is quite good -- just clamp it onto your pot with the new and improved clamp, dial in to your desired temperature with the new scroll wheel, and start cooking. Like the last Anova, the wide range between minimum and maximum water levels means that you won't have to worry as much about evaporation during long cooks as you will with a device like Nomiku, which has a much tighter range.

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You can search for recipes in the Anova app. Once you've found one you want to cook, you can send the time and temperature settings to the cooker at the touch of a button. You can also adjust the time and temperature manually. Screenshots by Ry Crist/CNET

But that's only half of the story. The other half sits with the app, which is the new, marquee feature with this second-gen cooker. In general, the app is simple and straightforward, with dials for timer and temperature control and a whole host of handy recipes. In practice, however, it's a lot clunkier than it would appear.

First off, the recipes are a nice touch, but they're too specific. What I found myself really wanting was an ingredient database. I didn't want to know how to make Sous Vide Salmon Cubes in Green Curry Noodle Soup -- I just wanted to know how to make salmon. Better still, I wanted the app to know how to make salmon, and just ask me how much I was cooking and how well-done I wanted it.

Even if you do find yourself drooling over a specific recipe, there's no way to save it as a favorite, and no way to rate it or leave a review after you've tried it. You can't enter your own recipes, either. In sum, it falls well short of the multitude of online recipe aggregators that tailor search results to the specific ingredients in your pantry, or that let you share recipes and experiences with friends. I can't imagine why I'd ever use Anova's app over sites and apps like those.

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Blah blah Bluetooth blah blah app. Let's look at that steak some more. Tyler Lizenby/CNET

I didn't enjoy using the app to control the device, either. Find a recipe you like, and you can press Start to send the time and temperature settings to the cooker. That's cool -- except for the fact that the timer won't wait for the water to hit the target temperature before starting the countdown, which throws everything off. Manual controls are clunky, too -- you can select whatever you want in the app, but you'll need to pause the cooker and then resume heating before everything will sync up.

If I owned the Anova Precision Cooker, I think I'd ignore those smart features altogether and use the thing just like the original, dumb Anova. That might sound like an all-out failure on the part of those smart features -- and maybe it is -- but it's one that's largely beside the point. Thankfully, you don't need to use those smart features to use the Anova Precision Cooker. You don't even need to download the app. Ignore it all, and this Anova is just as good as the original -- slightly better, even.

Tyler Lizenby/CNET

The verdict

The Anova Precision Cooker fails to offer compelling smarts for the kitchen, but it succeeds where it really counts. Like the Anova One that came before, it offers legitimate sous vide cooking chops that are both affordable and easy-to-use. It's also got a refined build and a lower price point than the last generation. As the new baseline Anova, it's hard to find much fault with it.

If you've already got a first-gen Anova (or any sous vide cooker, for that matter), you almost certainly don't need to upgrade, and if it's smarts that you're craving, you're better off holding out for a cooker with Wi-Fi. But if you're looking for a device to dive into sous vide with, you'll have a hard time doing much better than this.

8.0

Anova Precision Cooker

Score Breakdown

Performance 9Usability 7Design 8Features 7