The Cooker arrived in a double pack without any damage and immediately worked nicely for cooking some chicken breasts. Using the Sous Vide method really did result in well cooked but still moist chicken. With just a minute or two on a grill it was perfect. The cooker was easy to operate with just a tiny whir noise as it heated and circulated the water in the container. Setting the time and temp was self evident – although at some point I’m going to need to read the instruction booklet to set the temp readout to Fahrenheit 🙂

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Works flawlessly for me.My steaks and chicken breasts turn out perfectly tender, and safely cooked to temp every single time. I always use external thermometers to check my meats since I am a former professional cook. It heats to within +/-2% of all of my thermometers, always.I hope it continues to do so. I’m very tempted to buy a backup unit.I paid half this price, exactly 1 year ago.

Easy to use, fast heating, creates a nice bath for whatever you are warming.

This thing really surprised me. I had an older sous vide stick that died on me, so I wanted a budget replacement. This thing is silent! My old one was so annoying, I wouldn’t say loud exactly, but you could definitely hear it. This gets up to temp fast and I used a thermopen to check and it is dead on accurate. App was easy to get working. I don’t usually leave reviews but I was so impressed compared to my older name brand stick.

In all the reviews on Amazon, there are a few people that have posted info regarding a problem with the control panel (touch panel) not being secure. The first unit I received had this problem as well. No matter how many times I pressed it back into place, the bottom of the control panel popped back up… even when it was in the upright operating position. I almost put a tiny drop of glue to just keep the panel down, but decided against it. Returning the defective unit back to Amazon via the Prime Return process seemed to be the better option, PLUS I wanted to see if this problem would show itself in the replacement.Inkbird relies on thin metal springs which are connected to the underside of the touch panel to continuously pull at the bottom of it and hold it in place. When these springs become disconnected from the underside of the panel as they were on the first unit i received, there’s nothing to hold it down. Small tabs on the top and bottom edges of the touch panel that would fit into a small notches in the top and bottom of the surrounding frame would probably have prevented this from happening to anyone. For something that appears be otherwise well-designed, the springs alone does not seem to be a very good way to keep control panel secured at all.In any event and to wrap up this part of the review, I initiated the Amazon Prime return procedure and received a replacement. So far the replacement seems to be without that issue, but now I can’t help treating this new one very gently to avoid this issue from cropping up later. On with the rest of the review…FEATURES…SIZE – Overall I’d say this thing is pretty big… definitely NOT something that will fit in a utensil drawer. Not a deal-breaker, but smaller would be better. If you’re going to purchase a sous vide water container with a lid, be mindful of the diameter of the hole in the lid and the diameter of the Inkbird. FYI … this is the one I use with the Inkbird, and I really like it…https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B084Z1LT7D/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1CLIP ON THE BACK – Works good… very secure. I’m not using a cooler to sous vide my food so not being able to remove or adjust this does not affect me at all, but some may want that feature.ELECTRICAL WIRE – 4 feet is a good length… keeps the water bath away from the edge of the counter. Wire is very heavy duty but adds to the unit’s overall bulkiness.SETTING UP THE WIFI – This was pretty easy and all I can say is FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS!!! This only works on 2.4 ghz wifi not 5G. I have a Verizon WiFi unit that runs both 2.4 ghz and 5G WiFi simultaneously for backwards compatibility with older WiFi devices so I didn’t have a problem connecting. What I did do to ensure an easy connection process was to make sure my phone was running on the 2.4 ghz WiFi before I started. After that, I switched my phone back to its normal WiFi settings. IMHO… Bluetooth would have been the better connectivity choice.APP USAGE – I’m probably one of the few people that will write something positive about the APP’s operation. I actually like it. You can set the temperature or the time manually, use one of the pre-loaded “recipes”, edit the pre-loaded “recipes” and make them your own, or enter your own recipes from scratch. I’ve already taken the “recipe” called TENDER STEAK and transformed it into my own recipe called TENDERLOIN with the exact temperature and time for easy recall. In the app there is also a PLAY/PAUSE button. and easy access controls to change time and temperature. Using the APP to control the Inkbird is impressively fast, with very little if any lag time between pressing the control on my phone and having it appear on the Inkbird’s display. Plus, it’s really REALLY nice not to have to get up from the TV to check what’s going on with the unit (just check the APP). The only thing that the APP does not do well is let you know when the Inkbird is done with its cooking program. Notification on the phone that the cooking program is complete sometimes works fine, other times takes more than 10-15 minutes. My last pet peeve about the app is that it’s not just the app for the sous vide… it’s for connecting ALL Inkbird devices. I’m thinking that there needs to be a dedicated app just for the sous vide.MANUAL SETUP FOR COOKING & DISPLAY – This is very easy, but you just have to push the buttons a lot from start to finish to get a program running. The display is really nice and bright & very easy to read. The only negative about the display panel is that the buttons are VERY sensitive. I’ve inadvertently paused the unit’s operation a couple of times. Overall I find that the APP is the better of the two options to control the unit, but it’s nice to know that the control panel is there in case the APP or the WiFi craps out.HEATING – I always use hot tap water when setting up the Inkbird to sous vide. The temperature indicator on the Inkbird puts the tap water at 112 degrees so that’s the starting temperature I’m using for timing reference. I cook medium rare filet mignon to a temp of 132 degrees for one hour and going from 112 degrees to 132 degrees takes about 5-8 minutes. Chicken is cooked to 165 degrees and from 112 to 165 takes about 15-18 minutes. So about 3+ degrees per minute is the heating rate I’m currently experiencing and I think that’s very good.NOISE DURING OPERATION – To be honest, there is none worth noting. The only way you can hear it is if you get up close and if you do, you’ll hear a slight hum.WATER AGITATION & MAINTAINING TEMPERATURE – The water is definitely moving in the container, albeit very gently. The agitator could do a better job at moving the water around, but that would probably be at the expense of operating noise. Since water movement inside the container is really important in keeping the temperature consistent throughout the entire container, the gentleness of the Inkbird’s circulator needs to be compensated. To accomplish this more thought needs to go into the water bath setup, which includes measures to insulate from heat loss and prevent water evaporation. Here’s some things I do to overcome this issue…***The cooking container I’m using is 12 quarts. I don’t think I’d recommend going bigger than 16 quarts unless a second unit was included in the setup.***My container also has an insulating neoprene jacket surrounding the whole thing and a lid to prevent heat loss and water evaporation.***I also make absolutely sure there’s ample space all around the food bag or bags that are in the container to make sure the moving water isn’t blocked (I always use a rack).TEMPERATURE ACCURACY – This one is anyone’s guess. I mean I GUESS the temperature is right because I don’t have a calibrated thermometer to test with. One thing that I have noticed is when warming up the water for use, the Inkbird consistently gives a READY beep one degree below what was set for cooking. Why it does this, I haven’t a clue. The only thing I can report regarding temperature is that the food is coming out perfectly cooked.RESULTS – So far, I’ve been very happy with the results. I’ve cooked whole pork tenderloin to medium doneness in one hour, 1 1/2″ beef tenderloin steaks to medium-rare doneness in one hour, and chicken leg quarters (with thigh attached) in five hours.FINAL RATING -HITS…Under $100One of only a few sous vide units under $100 that offer a connected APPEasy WiFi setupBright, easy to ready, well laid-out displayClip works well at keeping the unit secured to the cooking containerVery quiet1000 watts heats the water very fastEasy to setup and run, especially with the APPConsistently good resultsMISSES…Design issue that causes some units to have loose touch panelsSome people may have problems with WiFi setup and/or compatibility… (Bluetooth may have been the better choice for universal connectivity)APP functions well, but still needs work… especially with notificationsAPP should be a dedicated sous vide APP, and not an all-in-one for other devicesSensitive control panel buttons may be unintentionally activatedOverly large size limits storage optionsNon adjustable or removal clip may be a problem for someGentle water circulation doesn’t really match the heating power and thus may limit the size of the cooking container being used.All in all I’d give this unit a solid three stars. A good choice for the $$$ but not great… not yet. The control panel issue I mentioned… it not being secure, needs to be addressed ASAP. The other things I mentioned are relatively minor by comparison, but still places where improvement would be desired.

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