Cost or no cost, IoT should not be able to brick devices on the whim - or unexpected dissolution - of a faceless corporation.
Unfortunately too many people are trusting of monolithic entities which promise the moon and then decide what they really meant was “bend over”.
I may be channelling a bit of Louis Rossman here.
That said, the other comments here suggest that the device in question still has all features when accessed from the front panel, which is a step up from a lot of other IoT behaviour. Owners who don’t want to pay for the app should still disconnect it from any connectivity and keep it that way just in case the manufacturer decides to remove that functionality as well.
And if it stops working altogether without network connectivity, take the L and maybe mail it back to the company’s head office with no return address. Let them deal with the e-waste.
It’s not unreasonable to start charging for an app like that if it is under active maintenance, that costs money for the company after all.
But the lesson for the consumer is: Don’t buy tools that rely on apps or servers ran by someone else unless you want to eventually start paying rent…
You realize all these people bought the thing before the app and subscription existed, right?
Something so simple shouldn’t require maintenance.
It requires cloud servers and power which needs to be online 24/7 for the app to work. That isn’t free. How do you think all this commerical IoT stuff works?
Oh good, it’s not the joule. That would suck big time. You can only use it via the app.
That was my first thought as well. I love that thing but I hate that it requires the app to run
Yeah. I have two different sticks. A cheap one because “no way is the joule that good” and the joule because “shit, maybe it is”.
And it is. But an interface on the stick would make it perfect.
It’s not the Joule… Yet
Good thing there are other good options out there by now. That would be a deal breaker for sure.
yeah…ummm…no
Guess inkbird are going to get recommended a lot more…
Are they good?
I have an Inkbird & really like it. Significantly less expensive than Annova, offers all of the same features from what I can tell, & it’s never given me any issues.
The app is of course a bit clunky & ultimately unnecessary, but it does actually function as advertised.
Lame move. That being said, I never use the app. It’s very easy to set the temperature without it.
They do this, because plebs pay…
There is a lesson in there
“Be evil so they have to stomp us out” shouldn’t be a standard. Stop allowing a world that rewards villains. Stop being a villain.
Coulda woulda shoulda…
People either accept the reality and act on it or keep getting fucked over because the world “shouldn’t work like this”
Speak for yourself, snowflake. The world isn’t a safe place for shitheads to be shitheads. Culpability doesn’t make you a victim.
It is utterly bullshit. But is the app required for using the device?
Also
The subscription fee will only apply to people who make an account after August 21. Those who downloaded the app and made an account before August 21 won’t have to pay. But everyone will have to make an account; some people have been using the app without one until now
So it’s not as bad as it seems, at least.
Except, prior to this announcement, there was apparently another statement from Anova that you can’t control the first gen ones.
the announcement follows an Anova statement saying it will no longer let users remotely control their kitchen gadgets via Bluetooth starting on September 28, 2025.
Unless these people paid a premium for this kind of “smart” device vs. the cost of a basic version.
I think the bigger issue is that they’re bricking all support for the oldest models, trying to force customers to abandon a fully functional device just because they want more money.
The app subscription fee is obnoxious as all get out, but punishing your oldest customers for your profit margins is what’s a bit infuriating.
At least, imo.
Honestly, after a decade of keeping compatibility and stuff, and that the sous vide still works fine without the apk, I don’t really see this as much of a big deal. An apk for a sous vide is nearly useless, anyhow. What are you going to do with it?
It’s more about the principle. Why is it ok for a manufacturer to remotely disable a feature that was bought & paid for by a decades worth of customers?
Now that they’ve done it once, what’s stopping future attempts to gin up higher profits using the same tactics?
I don’t think anyone here is angry enough to go all Kid Rock on their Sous Vides, but I do think there are plenty who will look at a different brand when it is time for a replacement.
Well they’re on v3 now and this ends the version 1, so I doubt they’ve sold the v1 for the past 5 years or so, but again, it’s not an apk that you need to use it. If it were a device like a garage door opener that let’s you open/close or see when the door is opened or closed I’d be bitching up a storm. Same if it were like a door deadbolt to lock/unlock your front door. But a water cooker? What do you need the apk for? It couldn’t functionally do anything over bluetooth to be of any help.
Would you buy a refrigerator from a manufacturer that wanted to make the ice maker a subscription service out of nowhere?
I get that the app isn’t a requirement for the device, but neither is an ice maker required for a refrigerator to function as designed.
They’re both features advertised as part of the original purchase price. Why does one get an expiration date out of the blue?
The people who are likely to be losing Bluetooth functionality are also the most likely to be from the original kickstarter batch.
Even if some-many of them have already upgraded to a newer model, that’s still one hell of a statement to make to your original backers.
I have one and I can use it without the app
Better make an account in the next 5 days
You can set the temperature and the cook time on the device without having the app at all. The biggest benefit of the app is that you get a notice when the water is to temperature, which for certain more sensitive foods is needed to put the food in. (If you’re doing a 24 hour slow cook, it’s not really needed, but if you’re trying to do something with more precise cooking lengths, you don’t want the variance of starting water temp affecting how long the food is in the bath.
Friendly reminder for others that you can setup this quite easily with home assistant and conditional notification alerts. I do it with my govee. Open. Source. Everything.
I looked into that and you need to build a Bluetooth bridge out of a ESP32. Pretty easy once you have the dev platform set up, but not for your average Joe.
There is an anova integration, but depends on their cloud service. When they stop supporting old devices, they will no longer function.
That’s what I understand anyway.
Is there a bridge? I’d definitely be interested in that.
Just need to configure Bluetooth and the govee integration.
I haven’t used the app in a while and opened it and saw this… Well never buying Anova again
But hey at least they gave me a coupon that expired two months ago.
Actively encouraging people to toss perfectly good hardware to fuel their subscription bullshit… and these guys weren’t even recently bought by a VC firm or anything?
They were bought by Electrolux in 2017, and have been enshittifying ever since. Cheaper, lower quality parts, etc. They’re just profiting from the brand as they turn it to shit. Never buy their products.
That’s bullshit
Imagine seeing that message and buying another product from them.
“It’s time to artificially create waste. Don’t worry, you won’t see this message again. Our new cookers are designed to not last 10 years.”
100%. They’ve just guaranteed that the sous vide unit that I have now is the last Anova product I will ever buy.
Ung
(Don’t) hope they did their math right and the “well, it’s just $2/mo” crowd is large enough to offset the principled crowd
That notice doesn’t even say there is a $2/mo option. App just won’t work at all.
Imagine Goodyear 500 tires!..for just 30 bucks a month you too can get the most inexpensive tires of all. 500 mile tires!. After 500 miles they don’t spin or hold air so we recommend setting your odometer properly.
Unrelated but how would you rate sous vide cooking? I am tempted for a bunch of reasons but I’m worried it’ll be just another kitchen appliance that I rarely use.
I was using it for steaks and it’s been great - sous vide then cast iron pan - but I moved somewhere where the smoke alarm is extremely sensitive so haven’t used it much lately 😞
There are different type of smoke alarms. Some detect smoke. There are two ways of doing that. Near a kitchen area it’s usually best to get a completely different one that just uses changes in temperature. Though they will only notify you way matter. So highly recommend keeping the existing one and moving that one somewhere else.
If you’re not committed, you don’t actually need an appliance for it, have had great results with a Dutch oven and a programmable BBQ thermometer monitoring the water temp. One of my burners goes really low so just a matter of adjusting to keep in range. You don’t get forced circulation (get some natural circulation though) and it’s not set and forget, but you can do with stuff you probably already have on hand. Done with heavy freezer bags before I was gifted a vacuum sealer.
For steaks, they’re excellent. About the only thing I haven’t been able to do over a good steakhouse restaurant is an extremely crisply outer layer. There’s some techniques there that I haven’t learned yet that might fix that. Everything else about the juiciness and taste is easily the same or better.
You’re basically taking all the art of out it that you would have to learn to become a top steak grill master, and replacing it with precision.
Make sure you dry your steak extremely well, and then basically shallow fry it in a cast iron or other heavy pan. Don’t need to deep fry it, but if you really want it as crispy, you want a real layer of oil.
One strength of sous vide is you can get even normal steaks much more tender than otherwise possible, just by extending your sous vide time up to two or three hours.
I can’t imagine why these things even need an app.
You have to set the thing up, just hit the buttons on the device.
Size and easy to clean (and waterproof) is one, I have a ChefSteps Joule which is app control only, but it is much easier to clean, and much smaller than my old Anova (fits in a drawer with other crap)
Granted it is more annoying to use the app than the controls, but the trade off for us was worth it, if not for everyone.
They could just use capacitive touch for controls, inferior to buttons but just as cleanable. There’s little reason to not have both options
The one and only time I used the app it lost connectivity and left my chuck roast in lukewarm water for who knows how long. Tossed it because I didn’t want to kill my family with food poisoning. It’s nice if you have a WIFI connected device, so you can put something on the counter in an ice water bath in the morning with the sous vide wand in there and flip it on before you leave work in the afternoon. Also seeing that the water has maintained an appropriate temp during a long cook is nice too. It’s a niche case use, but that’s why it’s nice to have it connected.
My partner has an Anovo affected by this and he knows the details better than me, but IIRC the app allows you to set times to change temps or things like that. The device still works without the app, but you lose the convenience factor of being able to monitor or make changes at a distance.
It’s kinda nice to just search what you are making, click cook, and all the settings are preloaded and the device starts. The manual interface is clunky.
I have one, and didn’t know it had an app.
LOL they absolutely don’t and mine does not have one or I never would have bought it. I don’t buy anything that requires an app to function.
I have a different brand, but I can see the value. The interface on the small screen on the device I have is very clumsy. Took me a while to figure it out, and I’m very tech savvy. I can see a mobile app being useful, also for notifications so I don’t independently have to set timers.
Also as a former mobile dev, mobile apps take maintenance to keep up with OS changes over time. And developers are expensive.
What I imagine happened is that they probably outsourced their app development to a 3rd party, because they make hardware, not software. That contract probably expired, including their ongoing support agreement, and they’ve probably negotiated an hourly rate for support on-demand going forward, maybe with a different 3rd party dev.
So in all likelihood, they’re just passing the cost for ongoing maintenance on an EOL model to the customer.
However, that looks absolutely insane from a consumer standpoint.
I don’t know their Financials, but they may not be big enough to just swallow the cost for brand PR if they’re not selling at a volume and profit margin to be able lose money on old products.
This is why, even as a dev that used to work in the mobile and IOT space, I tend to purchase dumb devices if there are good options. Smart devices get dumb as soon as the shine has dulled.
Do you need the apk to use it at all? Or is it just a little perk to go along with it?
Hopefully, someone hacks the apk so it just keeps working.
I bought one of these years ago, and took a look at it. The app let’s you remote control the stick and pick recipes that will autoset the temps. That’s about it. The stick has buttons on it, and it’s not like you can have it add the food to the water bath remotely. It’d pretty easy to knock in the temp at the heater while you’re there
Sous vide is a “set and forget” cooking method like a crockpot. You can walk away and leave the thing running long past the minimum time and have no issues because the whole point is it takes food to an exact temp and no further. So even any alerting “temp reached” it may do now isn’t really useful.
This feels like a “pick the carcass” attempt to make some money at all. I expect the company is probably in a bad state if this is the game they are playing.
I would see if there’s a way to disable updates for that app.
Lol. Hell no.
Lemmy.world needs an internet-of-shit community. This could be a solid first contribution.
It might fall into the remit of @enshittification@lemmy.world
That links to a user for me.
Web link is https://lemmy.world/c/enshittification
Community link: !enshittification@lemmy.world
The subscription fee will only apply to people who make an account after August 21. Those who downloaded the app and made an account before August 21 won’t have to pay. But everyone will have to make an account; some people have been using the app without one until now.
“You helped us build Anova, and our intent is that you will be grandfathered in forever,” Svajian wrote
Fuck everything about this, but at least they have the decency not to pull the rug on people who bought it without this stupidity.
The only real benefit of the app to me is the push notifications, but losing those would be douchey. It would be far better to allow that basic functionality and put all the recipe shit behind the wall.
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I have one of these. The sous vide cooker itself is very nice and easy to use, I’d highly recommend it. The app is a bit clunky and not necessary to use the device. I certainly wouldn’t pay $2 a month for it.
The app lets you set a temperature and cook time, but you can also do this using the buttons on the cooker. Sometimes the WiFi pairing is finicky, so honestly I skip the app half the time. The app also lets you view and write recipes. I guess the big advantage is you can click “start cooking” and it automatically sets the device temp and time, but doing it manually isn’t much harder. I’m also not wowed by the in-app recipe selection, and generally just get recipes from the internet.
Y’all should read Unauthorized Bread from Cory Doctorow. This hits so close to home.
