We analyzed 117 negative reviews from the top 5 Canning Assistant apps on the App Store. Here's what users hate most.
Ranked by frequency — how often each complaint appears in negative reviews.
68% of negative reviews mention this issue.
"The wifi connectivity is absolutely appalling. Almost everytime I try to use this app to use my oven, I open the app only to see the 'oven not found' message."
"it regularly loses its connection to the oven. This sometimes requires a hard reset - reaching behind the oven to un"
23% of negative reviews mention this issue.
"I bought this oven for $700 a few years ago and this morning discovered the app that is used to control it is switching to a subscription model, rendering this device I paid $700 for a few years ago basically just a giant fiddly massively overpriced"
"We love the oven. But after having it for over a year, we launched the app this evening and was greeted to a message saying that we needed a subscription now. Anova has lost all of my loyalty and I now hate them."
31% of negative reviews mention this issue.
"the app is most politely described as a flaming dumpster of fabulously inept engineering. It has not worked well since the oven was still in beta. It still does not. It crashes"
"Tried to use the app, paired with my oven, to follow a multi-step recipe and after turning on my oven to preheat I can't use the app — it hangs, endlessly."
19% of negative reviews mention this issue.
"Bravo to the Anova team! They've managed to lose recipes once again with the most recent update. I bake the same 6 stage sourdough recipe every week. This morning I awake to find they've simplified the recipe into just 2 stages."
"My saved recipes disappear randomly from time to time."
15% of negative reviews mention this issue.
"I updated the firmware of my 2.0 and it seems to have killed the oven. I tried contacting Anova and they answer, but then it goes straight to their voicemail."
"Then Anova pushed an update to the oven and the app (one that I could not opt out of because Anova changed their cloud servers) and since, the app and oven are unreliable."
21% of negative reviews mention this issue.
"November 20, 2022. Brand new oven, brand new firmware. Can't connect to oven as advertised."
"App has a clear action to connect with an Anova Precision Oven 2.0 but simply shows to activate the QR code on device. There is no option to scan this QR code from the app."
Design and usability issues driving negative reviews.
Users struggle to understand cooking stages, accidentally change settings, and find navigation between steps unclear
"Navigating the app and changing settings is very confusing. It's a puzzle to figure out which step is which before vs during cooking."
App animates temperature changes slowly while users are trying to monitor critical cooking stages
"when returning to a cook, the app tries to slowly animate the change in oven temp and cooking stage. This is silly"
Adding family members is painful with QR codes, users get stuck in login loops, and must re-add users after disconnections
"A mess of an app. When it works it is quirky in adding users. Using a QR code model to add users which is painful when the app disconnects and you have to re-add those users. Even worse when the 'owner' is out of town."
Buttons fail to start cooking stages, controls are too small for normal thumbs, and manual control inputs lead to blank screens
"Constant issues when starting the oven or the next cooking stage via the app. Most times it will outright never start or go to the next stage when I click the button"
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