Since 2014, we’ve been committed to providing you with high-quality connected cooking through the Anova Culinary app. It’s been thrilling to bring sous vide cooking into your kitchens and see the #anovafoodnerd community grow. We love being part of the journey, from your first sous vide cook to your latest culinary experiment.
As our community has grown, so have the demands on our resources. Our community has literally cooked 100s of millions of times with our app. Unfortunately, each connected cook costs us money. So, to continue delivering the exceptional service and innovative recipes you’ve come to expect, we’re introducing a small subscription fee for our app. The new Anova Sous Vide Subscription will allow us to maintain and enhance the app, ensuring it remains a valuable resource for all of our users. Here are the details:
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Who will this impact? Only new customers will have to pay for a subscription. Existing customers who have an account with us before August 21st, 2024, will not be charged a subscription fee. To be an existing user, you must have downloaded our app AND made an account in the app before August 21st, 2024. In the event you are an existing user, you will be grandfathered in to free usage of the app. You helped us build Anova and our intent is that you will be grandfathered in forever.
If you don't currently have an account but are using the app with your Bluetooth-connected cookers, after August 20th, you'll be asked to create an account in the Anova app so that we can automatically give you legacy / grandfather status and continued access to the full features of the app.
- What does it cost and what do customers get? The subscription will cost $1.99 per month or $9.99 per year USD. What you get with a subscription will vary from product to product, but in general, here’s what it includes:
- Anova Sous Vide Guides: Learn the basics with guides created by our experts. Choose your preferred level of doneness and press start to get cooking.
- Cook Notifications: Remote updates on your cook status.
- Recipe Discovery: Find recipes from award-winning chefs, #anovafoodnerds, and more.
- Recipe Saving: Bookmark your favorites and share your recipes with friends directly on the app.
- When will this go into effect? This subscription will go into effect on August 21st, 2024. Again, if you already have an account with us and purchased a product prior to August, 21 2024, there will be no change in our service for you.
Thank you for your understanding and continued support. Our mission is to change the way the world cooks and this subscription will help us to continue on with this mission. We are excited to keep cooking with you and can’t wait to see what you create next!
Stephen Svajian
Co-Founder and CEO
374 comments
I’m really sad. I have the Bluetooth cooker and hadn’t used it for a year. Today I bought steak and re-downloaded the app and discovered, hey, you are one day late past creating an account to be grandfathered in – which nobody ever told me about like in an email or anything.
Congratulations on losing a customer for life, over what $20-$30? I haven’t had one of your products last beyond it’s warranty, so at best you were going to get $30 out of me. I wouldn’t have noticed a product price increase of $30 nearly as much as a subscription. It’s the principle of distasteful business practices that ruin a company, that sold me a connected device to begin with.
I have had my sous vide device since 2017 and now since I didn’t see this announcement until today, I have to pay to use the device as before even though I used the app? NOT COOL, Anova. NOT COOL. Why isn’t my receipt of purchase enough?!
I’ve been an Anova user for ten years. Especially I’ve provided feedback on the Precision Oven since its beta stage, and I’m grateful that you implemented the 30°C fermentation feature. That’s why I’m very disappointed with the recent release.
The app has two main functions:
1) controlling Anova devices, and
2) recipe sharing and connected cooking.
You’ve cited the latter as a cost-driving factor, but not all users necessarily need it. Personally, I want to use Anova purely as a tool and have never used the recipe / connected cooking feature.
On the other hand, device control is something all users need. Focusing on the Precision Oven, it’s because the device alone lacks sufficient information and has poor usability (couldn’t the temperature adjustment interface be improved?).
In other words, the Precision Oven is not complete as a product without the app. Only with the app does the user experience meet expectations.
This kind of approach is generally known as the “hostage method,” where users who can’t afford to lose the former function are forced to bear the cost of the latter. I must say this is a very poor strategy in terms of your approach to users.
Of course, connected cooking is a fantastic service, and there are many people who find it valuable. If it incurs costs, I think it’s fair to charge those who see its value. However, I must reiterate that the device control should not be held hostage.
A better strategy would be to separate the control app from the connected cooking app. It would also be ideal if hardware updates could provide sufficient usability and information without relying on the app, but that may not be feasible in the short term. I hope you will give this careful consideration.
Oh Hell No.