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Smart sous vide cooker to start charging $2/month for 10-year-old companion app (arstechnica.com)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/26079647

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[–] Benjaben 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Not nearly as big a story as it seems:

all existing users (and anyone who makes an account before Aug 21) are grandfathered into the free model forever
the app is really a secondary feature altogether and pretty unimportant; I use my Anova sous vide plenty and have not once felt I wanted to use the app

This honestly seems pretty damn reasonable. And for just about anyone with enough disposable income to be cooking sous vide, $2/month (or they offer $10/yr!) is almost certainly no more than a rounding error.

What I don't get is why (and how) they're talking about disabling Bluetooth, that was mentioned but not really discussed or justified. I do have a big problem in principle with any situation where I've bought something, and without my consent the mfg changes it to remove functionality. That should be explicitly illegal (with maybe exceptions for true safety issues).

[–] sesnek 2 points 2 months ago

I agree.

I suppose the reason is, they haven’t been selling enough cookers as of late. When I opened the app there was a notification stating the Bluetooth would be disabled from the app and here is a discount coupon to buy a new one.

I like using the thing, but usually it is easier to just use the stovetop, so my cooker doesn’t see a ton of action, I would assume that is the case for most people. And thats probably why I have a 10 year old cooker the still works great.

Even though I don’t use the cooker often and it is totally functional without the app, it’s really disappointing, especially when they could just leave the Bluetooth alone, the only reason they are removing it is to get me to buy another one.