Surely you would put stuff in cooker, set the program and walk away, when it beeps, it's done!
The app seems to have recipes but surely that's just going to just resolve temperature and time, hardly something you need a whole app for!
Yes I agree for 95% with you. I cook sous vide for over 3 years now and 95% of the recipes are set temperature, put food in and set a $5 kitchen alarm for the time to beep when ready.
Then there are a few recipes for instance stew meat that has to braise for over 24 hours at 65
oC and some recipes even go for 36 hours at 60
oC that can be a bit better when the first few hours you raise the temp higher to lets say 75
oC then back to 60/65 for the remainder of the time.
The reason is that this meat has two structures, one needs a higher temperature to convert to a gel substance, the other being the meat it self doesn't need this high temperature.
All the sous vide baths I saw don't have these multi parameter timed PID , just a single PID.
But I don't think the app supports this, I do not think you can control the temperature with the app, just set the recipe and it probably is a single PID controlled bath.
Then there is this critical timing myth: if you take for instance a steak and put it (depending on thickness) for 1 hour at 55
oC then it really does not matter if you take it out 10 or even 30 minutes later. Since the temperature stays at 55
oC the inners of the meat will also stay at 55
oC and it won't cook any further, just a bit more tender (the structure changes a bit over time) but nothing very critical so having an app for this is indeed bullshit.
So my advice for the cook that wants to experiment on a low budget
buy the book Sous Vide for the Home Cook from
Baldwin for the time tables and advice ,
buy the $5 kitchen timer if you don't have one
buy a standard waterbath used for keeping food warm capable of going to 90
oC they cost around $60
build your own PID, buy a cheapo chinese or a good one
here .