Anova Precision Cooker: three sous-vide circulators, and one sale price on two of them

Home sous vide is a wand you clamp to a pot. It heats water and moves it. Anova sells three of these wands side by side, and they are not the same wand: Precision Cooker, Precision Cooker 3.0, and Precision Cooker Pro. The pages were checked on 20 October 2026 at anovaculinary.com. We did not cook with any of them. The sale price that day was the same on two of them, 199 dollars, and the price before the sale was not the same. That is the detail that is easy to miss if you compare only the large number in the cart.

Three pages, three wattages

On the Precision Cooker page the regular price is listed as 219 dollars and the sale price as 199. The power is 1,000 watts. The table range: 0 to 92 degrees Celsius, 32 to 197 Fahrenheit, accuracy plus or minus 0.1 degrees Celsius, which is 0.2 Fahrenheit. Flow 8 litres a minute. A minimum water sensor that shuts off at 65 millimetres. Dimensions 78 by 78 by 325 millimetres, weight 0.9 kilograms. Connection: Wi-Fi, 802.11 b/g/n on 2.4 gigahertz, and an app for iOS and Android. Materials: plastic and stainless steel, IPX7. A two-year warranty, and 100 days to send it back, as the page writes. Those are the page's terms, not a test of how the shop actually handles a return.

On the Cooker 3.0 page there is no crossed-out price. The price shown is 229 dollars. The power is 1,100 watts. Anova writes that the model moved to dual-band Wi-Fi, without naming 5 gigahertz here, only "dual band" and 802.11 b/g/n. There is a two-line touch screen that shows time and temperature together. Dimensions 78 by 138 by 325 millimetres, still 0.9 kilograms. The same temperature range and the same flow of 8 litres a minute, and the same 65-millimetre sensor. Added here: an adjustable clamp that comes off, and a skirt that comes off for cleaning. IPX7, two years, and 100 days, like the neighbours.

On the Pro page the regular price is 459 dollars and the sale price is 199, the same 199 as the base model, on the same day. The power is 1,200 watts. The accuracy in the table is plus or minus 0.05 degrees Celsius, 0.09 Fahrenheit. In the paragraph above the table Anova writes 0.09 Fahrenheit. The two wordings meet. Flow 12 litres a minute. Anova writes that the wand heats and circulates up to 26 gallons. That is the maker's claim, not our measurement. Dimensions 88 millimetres deep, 60 wide, 350 high, weight 1.29 kilograms. Minimum water level 62 millimetres, maximum 170. The shutoff sensor sits at 62 millimetres. Materials: stainless steel and Teflon-coated aluminium, IPX7. Connection: Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n on 2.4 gigahertz. Two years and 100 days here too.

A sale ends. 199 dollars on the Pro is not the regular price written next to it. Anyone who compares only the sale price can think the Pro and the base model are the same purchase.

An older support article, and a different range

In a hardware support article Anova answers what the temperature range of the Precision Cooker is: a reliable hold from 77 Fahrenheit, 25 Celsius, to 212.5 Fahrenheit, 99 Celsius. The wand can read higher and lower, but it will not run outside that range. It does not boil water and it does not chill it. That article does not mention the name Cooker 3.0 or the Pro. The three product pages, by contrast, list a sensor range of 0 to 92 degrees. We did not decide which number a 2026 machine will actually accept. Someone who sets 95 Celsius does not know from these pages whether the machine will refuse.

That same support article also has an older pair: an 800-watt Bluetooth unit that circulates 5 gallons, and a 900-watt Wi-Fi unit that circulates 5.5 gallons. The three pages we opened in October 2026 talk about 1,000, 1,100 and 1,200 watts. The wattage on the box should match the page for that model, not the older answer. The same answer says you can use it without the phone: set time and temperature on the machine. That matters, because according to that sentence the connection is not a condition for turning it on.

The 3.0 page says you can cook, browse recipes and monitor from your phone, "from anywhere." On the same page a buyer's review says the app does not connect when they are not on the home Wi-Fi, and another review says a subscription is required for the advanced features. We did not test the app. We did not turn a review into a specification. It is still worth knowing that the promise "from anywhere" and the review sit on the same page. On the Pro page the specification itself says 2.4 gigahertz. A review there describes a 5-gigahertz-only network and a wand that did not connect. That matches the specification line, even without adopting the review: a home network that is only 5 gigahertz does not meet what is written on the Pro page and on the base page. The 3.0 is described as dual band, without a list of the bands.

Water, the bag, and the browning that comes after

The three pages describe the same four steps, and those steps decide who this fits better than the wattage does. First you clamp it to a pot you already have. These pages do not give one minimum pot volume, apart from the water height: the shutoff sensor sits at 65 millimetres on the base and the 3.0, and at 62 on the Pro, with a maximum water level of 170 millimetres only in the Pro's table. A pot that is too shallow will stop the wand. A pot that is too tall does not get a promise from the table that the flow reaches the bottom. That is a check with a ruler, before you buy, not after the bag is already in.

The food goes into a sealed bag. The pages do not specify a bag type, and we did not write a brand name here. What they do say: you sear at the end. Meat that comes out of the water is grey at the edge, and the crust is made in a pan or on a grill. Someone who does not have a pan ready at the end of the hour has not finished the method. Someone cooking a vegetable that has nothing to brown can stop without the fourth step. That is a difference between recipes, not between models.

The wattage changes how fast the water heats, not the taste. 1,000 watts against 1,200 are 200 watts on the same method. Anova does not publish, on the pages we opened, how many minutes it takes to reach 60 degrees in a pot of a given size. Without that figure there is no "the Pro is ten minutes faster." There are only watts, flow, and the 26-gallon claim on the Pro alone. A large quantity, a huge pot, or a long cook without a break is Anova's reason for the Pro. A week of two steaks in a medium pot does not require the gap between 459 and 219 dollars in the price before the sale.

IPX7 appears on all three pages as resistance to water and splashes. We did not translate that into "you can sink it in the sink," because the standard is not quoted here beyond the line. The 3.0 clamp comes off, and the skirt comes off for cleaning. On the base model that line does not appear in the same wording. Someone who is tired of residue on the wand will read the cleaning line, not only the watt line.

Who gets a wand, and who does not

The method, according to the three pages, is the same method: clamp it to your pot, put the food in a sealed bag, set it on the machine or in the app, and at the end sear in a pan or on a grill. Anova does not claim the wand browns. Browning is a separate step. Someone looking for a crust without another pan will not find it here.

The base and the 3.0, with a flow of 8 litres a minute and 1,000 or 1,100 watts, are for someone cooking in a household pot. The Pro, with 1,200 watts, 12 litres a minute, and the claim about 26 gallons, is aimed by Anova at a larger quantity and at a tighter accuracy. The weight goes up to 1.29 kilograms, and the regular price written next to it is 459 dollars, even if the sale on 20 October 2026 brought it down to 199. Anyone buying on the sale should know the gap can come back.

Sous vide inside a pressure cooker is something else. The Instant Pot Duo Plus has a function named sous vide, and the regular Duo does not. That is not a wand with a flow of 8 or 12 litres a minute, and not a tenth-of-a-degree accuracy from an Anova page. Someone who needs that accuracy buys a circulator. Someone who needs beans under pressure buys a pressure cooker.

Before you connect the wand to the network, the article on Wi-Fi is still relevant: 2.4 gigahertz is a specification, not a decoration. A wireless meat thermometer, which works differently, sits in MEATER Pro.

A recipe with a temperature and a time

A good sous-vide recipe states a temperature and a time, not "until it is done." According to the KitchenAppes homepage, cooking mode keeps the screen on and shows one step at a time, and timers start directly from the step that needs them. You type the number into the wand or into Anova's app. KitchenAppes does not control the wand, and there is no such claim here. If the recipe is in Fahrenheit, converting the measurements comes before you set 0 to 92 or 25 to 99, depending on which page you chose to trust. You can browse the community recipes on KitchenAppes and read more about us.

Questions

Why do two models share a price of 199 dollars?

On 20 October 2026 the Precision Cooker page showed a sale of 199 dollars instead of 219, and the Pro page showed a sale of 199 instead of 459. The Cooker 3.0 stood at 229 with no crossed-out price. A sale is not a specification.

What is the temperature range, 92 or 99?

The product pages list 0 to 92 degrees Celsius. The support article, without naming the 3.0 or the Pro, says a reliable hold from 25 to 99 degrees, with no boiling and no cooling. We did not close the gap.

Can you use it without the app?

The support article says yes: set time and temperature on the machine. The pages also market monitoring from the phone. We did not test an account or a subscription.

The home network is 5 gigahertz. Is that enough?

The base page and the Pro page say 2.4 gigahertz. The 3.0 page says dual band, without a list of frequencies. A network that is only 5 gigahertz does not meet the 2.4 line.

Is the Instant Pot sous vide the same thing?

Not according to the pages. The Duo Plus lists a sous-vide function inside the pot. Anova publishes a wand with flow, an accuracy of a tenth or of five hundredths, and your own pot. Those are two tools.