Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This review is going to separate out the sous vide cooking method (which I love) from the ChefStep Joule immersion circulator (which I'm learning to hate). I've had the Joule for about three months now. Before buying it I read the reviews, did my research, and decided on either the Anova 900W or the ChefStep Joule. My brother-in-law was advocating the Anova because it could be controlled directly from the device without a phone app. I smiled, called him a Luddite for dissing the app, and bought the Joule (which seemed to barely edge out the Anova on the reviews). Do you know how painful it is to admit to my brother-in-law that I was wrong and he was right? In the three months that I've had the Joule, I've made rib-eye steaks, fillet mignon, chicken stroganoff, beef stroganoff, country style pork, chicken thighs, salmon, cheese cake (absolutely fantastic), coffee, yogurt, and probably more things that I've already forgotten about. Almost everything has turned out excellent. So, if almost everything is turning out excellent, why am I learning to hate the Joule? 1. The only way to control the device is through a phone app. In my case, Android – and the app is PAINFULLY slow. When you first click the icon to launch the app, it takes 12 seconds before you have anything more than the Joule splash screen. Why? Does it phone home and check for something new to download every time? When I launch the app it is because I want to control the Joule – not because I want to wait 12 seconds before I can even start getting something useful. 2. Once the first non-splash screen comes up, the app takes an incredible amount of time to find the Joule. Okay, I've already waited around 12 seconds to get here, I *really*don't want to wait around another 30 while the app tries to find the device ("Patience grasshopper." Sigh). Note: I have both Bluetooth and the wireless interface turned on. 3. When I finally get to the point that I can control the device, I punch in the temperature I want (ignoring all of their builtin ivideos, color charts, and other things that I'm sure they're wasting developer time on versus making the app responsive). After the time is entered and the device is purring away, I hit the “back” button to exit the temperature control. I then hit the back button to exit the app. Nope. Doesn't exit the app, it goes back to the temperature control (what?!?). I start hunting around for a way to kill the app and there's no “exit app” or “quit” option. 4. Okay, so you can't exit the app, who cares? Well, my battery cares. With the Joule app in the background, it must be constantly waking up to do something (Checking on the temperature? Searching Bluetooth? Phoning home?) because the battery starts draining at an alarming rate. Normally I can go three days without charging my phone (even with heavy web surfing). If I don't reboot the phone to kill the Joule app, I'll definitely have to recharge my phone that night or sooner. I would hate to think of what would happen if I didn't have an over-sized battery. 5. When I want to turn the Joule off, I can wait around roughly 45 seconds twiddling my thumbs or I can yank the power cord out of the wall. Oh, bad move. The next time that you start Joule it punishes you by popping up an overlay informing you that the Joule lost power (well, no kidding, I yanked the cord). Now I have to wait longer to start it up again. Sigh. 6. I took the Joule over to my son's house to show off sous vide cooking. Now the app pops up that it can't find the network, prompts if I want to reconfigure it for the current environment, and when I say no, informs me that “this cook will not be recorded”. Really?!? You're recording every time I use my Joule? Maybe it's just me, but I'm tired of devices spying on me. So I started eyeing my brother-in-law's Anova with undisguised envy and my wife hears me mumbling under my breath about the Joule – so she tells me I should buy the Anova (long story as to why she let me buy another one – I suspect it was to take the sting out of something she bought ...). So now when I go to the cupboard to grab a “sous vide machine” I find I'm nearly always grabbing the Anova. With the Anova, I just put it in the water bath, plug it in, spin the fly wheel on the front to the correct temperature, and I'm done in 5 seconds or less. To be fair, the Joule does have a few things over the Anova. The Joule can hold a lower temperature which might be useful in cheese making. It also can function with less water (which so far hasn't been an issue for me, but it is a selling point). Bottom line, if you're only going to be able to purchase one sous vide device, I strongly recommend the 900W Anova over the Joule by ChefStep.