Aobosi Sous Vide Cooker Review

While the Aobosi Sous Vide clearly isn't our favorite, we did appreciate its strong showing in our temperature stability and accuracy assessments. This doesn't quite redeem its overall unimpressive results but is something to consider if you found it on sale at a steeply discounted price.

Performance Comparison

Likes

The Aobosi Sous Vide's most noteworthy set of results came in our circulation metric, which is responsible for 30% of its final score. We did a circulation test by adding a small amount of dyed water to a corner of the sous vide container with 9.5 quarts in it, then timed how long it took the pump on the Aobosi Sous Vide to achieve a consistent shade throughout the bath. The Aobosi Sous Vide only needed around 26 seconds for this to occur, with the slowest models taking close to 200 seconds and the fastest only taking 15 or so.

The Aobosi Sous Vide also did decently well in our temperature accuracy and stability evaluations. We compared the accuracy between machines by setting each one to 135°F, giving it plenty of time to come up to temperature, measuring the water bath in six different locations with a precision thermometer, and then averaging the results. We repeated this process with the water bath set for 147°F and found the Aobosi Sous Vide had an average error of 0.63°F over when the temperature was set to 135°F and 0.93°F under when it was set to 147°F.

For our stability assessment, we used a data logging temperature sensor placed in a bag to measure the temperature in the center of the water bath every minute for an hour, then awarded points based on the amount of time each sous vide showed a discrepancy from their steady-state temperature. The Aobosi Sous Vide only has an error for 8.33% of the time in our test, with an average discrepancy of only 0.07°F.

The interface on this sous vide is fine but definitely far from the most user-friendly. It lacks a companion app, so you are limited to just the touch buttons and digital display on the device itself.

Dislikes

The Aobosi Sous Vide did take a decently long time to heat up the water in our initial heating test. We started it with 9.5 quarts of 48°F tap water and it took almost an hour — 57 minutes — to warm it up to 147°F. The fastest sous vides took about 20 minutes less to do this. However, it was in our recovery time test where we found the results to be the most disappointing. For this test, we timed how long it took each sous vide to recover to the set temperature once cold food was added — three frozen hamburger patties to be exact. It took the Aobosi Sous Vide 18 minutes to recover to 135°F when it took the top sous vides only a minute or two. The screw action on the clamp also doesn't spin super freely, so it can be a little more cumbersome to attach than other models as well.

Value

The Aobosi Sous Vide isn't a great value, pairing an unimpressive set of results with what we felt to be a higher price tag than it should.

Conclusion

Overall, we aren't enamored with the Aobosi Sous Vide. It has plenty of flaws and there are other options in the same price range — or an even lower one — that we liked much more and would suggest you go with one of those alternatives.