Anova Culinary Precision Cooker Nano Review

Performance Comparison

Temperature

First and foremost, we rated and scored each product's temperature accuracy and heating abilities, which accounts for 40% of the final score for each product. When determining scores, we looked at how well the Precision Cooker Nano maintained a stable temperature over an hour, its accuracy, how long it took to warm the bath initially, and how quickly it regained its set temperature after adding cold food.

The Anova Precision struggled a little bit when it came to heating 9.5 quarts of cold tap water to 147°F, taking just shy of an hour to accomplish this task, with the fastest models only taking about half of that. The Anova Precision Cooker Nano did recover decently well when we dropped three frozen burger patties in the sous vide bath, returning to 135°F after three minutes or so.

The Precision did thoroughly impress us in our stability test, maintaining an essentially perfectly stable temperature water bath over an hour. We measured this with an iButton data logger vacuum-sealed into a sous vide bag, which measures a resolution of 0.1°F. It did well in our accuracy tests, with the temperature on its display only differing from our lab-grade thermometer by an average of 0.38°F when set to 135°F and 0.19°F when set to 147°F.

Circulation

Our second metric focused on how well the Anova circulated water throughout the vessel, which makes up 30% of the final score for this appliance. We evaluated performance by timing how long it took for the measured quantity of dye injected into the bath to become a consistent color throughout. It has quite an impressive amount of circulation.

This product only took 48 seconds to evenly disperse the dye throughout the water bath — much faster than the two or three minutes it took some of the slower models. However, it was still considerably slower than the fastest models, which distributed the food dye in approximately 15 seconds.

Ease of Use

Next, we evaluated how convenient and easy to use the Precision Cooker Nano is, which is responsible for 30% of the total score for each product. Scores were based on the interface for each sous vide — including its companion app if there is one — and how easily each product can attach to different containers. The Precision Cooker Nano did exceptionally well.

The Precision Cooker Nano has basic manual controls — touch buttons and a digital screen — that are responsive and intuitive. They make a good backup option if you don't feel like using your smartphone to control the sous vide or someone who hasn't set up the connected features needs to adjust while cooking is underway.

The companion app is also very convenient and straightforward to use, but we occasionally found it a little glitchy if the WiFi wasn't the best or swapping networks. We liked that you can start or stop the Precision Cooker Nano remotely, look up recipes in the library, and automatically have your sous vide follow them, or even create and save custom recipes to get repeatable results once you have fine-tuned your dishes.

It clamps to the side of the container with a screw action clamp. The screw spins freely and quickly lets you mount it securely to all sorts of vessels.

Should You Buy the Precision Cooker Nano?

The Precision Cooker Nano is one of our all-time favorite sous vide machines, pairing excellent temperature accuracy with impressive circulating power all in a much more affordable package than many of the other top-tier models. It is compatible with the Anova app, so you can remotely start or stop your sous vide right from your smartphone. This app also offers you a handy set of pre-configured recipes that you can send right to the machine or an option to create custom recipes to make it easier to cook your favorite meals again and again. This product is a great option if you are shopping for top-tier sous vide for your kitchen and hoping to save some cash.

What Other Sous Vide Machine Should You Consider?

If you want the absolute best of the best, the Anova Culinary Precision Cooker AN500-US00 is our favorite. It offers a higher overall performance result with better circulation than its little brother. If you love gadgets with smart capabilities, the Breville Joule 1100W only works using an app on your phone and provides similar performance.