Sous Vide Tools Reviews 137

Terrible company I spent over £500 on a The Sage PolyScience HydroPro. I received the box which was not sealed and looked like it had been used. The immersion circulator was faulty, I tried speaking to customer services, they repeatedly hung up on me. I had to escalate the fault to a claim with Paypal and upload videos of the fault to get my money back. I am now out of pocket because it cost me £30 to return the items to sousvidetools.com on the advice of Paypal.

I had nothing short of exceptional customer service. I ordered a Japanese tabletop grill, which unfortunately got lost en route by the courier. I called Sous Vide Tools and immediately got through to their very helpful sales team who upgraded my order and made sure it arrived the next day before Christmas. I will certainly be using them again.

Really bad product! Bought a vac packer for home use, used a handful of times then stopped working. Contacted them with videos of product, proof of purchase etc as I live above a pub, they decided my “home” was a commercial property and therefore the product was not under warranty. Vac packer now in the bin- terrible company to deal with, avoid!

AVOID!!! I just wish I had read the reviews before purchasing through them. I will share this with friends and ask them to publish via SM so others don’t make the same mistake. In a nutshell, they sent me something that didn’t work (seems to be the theme in the reviews) and made it my problem instead of taking responsibility. I Ordered a dehydrator as a gift, it arrived in a damaged, ripped box, the item completely open, no extra padding, I emailed them to say, this is how my product arrived and actually, it would be good to make people aware that it simply arrives in its own box and is obvious what it is (with gifts in mind) I had a reply thanking me for my email and they hope we enjoy the gift!! The dehydrator was a birthday gift for 24th May, due to distance and restrictions I only recently got to give the gift to the recipient who in breaking up for their summer holidays was excited to use it, surprise surprise, it didn’t work. We were asked to return at our cost, p&p and complete warranty form and wait for a review and fix. It has never been used so was clearly damaged in transit or shipped in a non working condition, so this becomes my problem how??!! I have wasted a lot of time today emailing back and forth, I have asked them to refund me or simply replace the item and arrange collection of the faulty item from the recipients home and they can then check it, fix it and do what they like with it, but no. They have agreed to collect, but won’t refund or replace until they complete their warranty process and sound like we then have to await a fix, not get a new working machine. In short, I would happily pay more for the appliance and deal with a company that has Customer experience in mind. Don’t use these to save a few pounds it will cost you in the end, not just in money but time.

Surprised by the low scores. Ordered a Blast Chiller last Friday and asked for Saturday delivery. Advised that would be expensive as it was a pallet delivery, but could easily deliver on Monday.
Arrived as promised no proble.
Second time I have used this company and everything is always great!

Update: 03.07.21. Since writing this review I received a call from the manager who commented below.

I received a professional apology and reflection on the events past and why it was not good enough. The member of staff informed me that they have/would make appropriate changes to address the issues highlighted (they address specific issues in the phone call).

I was disappointed that this conversation required me to write a review to receive, the member of staff did reflect on this also and apologise.

I have since received a new machine, with a warranty and all is working well.

I do think that this response was very professional, and from my perspective seemed at least somewhat genuine.
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I do not recommend buying this from this company. These comments do not seem to be unique and seem to be a trend.

I have now received 4 copies of this machine (an Ivide sous-vide machine) with each one faulty. This was purchased directly with the seller.
This is nothing short of a joke, which as the word suggests was funny at first but demonstrates a consistent level of incompetence. I can only give the benefit of the doubt to a company so many times.

My family purchased this as a gift previously and since December am yet to have received a working machine (though COVID was to blame for the delays until march).
With the problems, in chronological order of machine: a broken propeller, a cracked screen, a broken thermometer and delivered to the wrong address (after previously confirming my address twice).

On the other hand, I was denied a refund and told I could upgrade to a model that "addressed these issues" for an extra 30 pounds.
This is completely unacceptable. To be called and asked to pay an extra 30 pounds to upgrade to a "working" version is a disgrace. No words could describe the audacity a company/team must have to ask this.

7 months into my order and I am yet to have received a working machine - is this a very bad scam? But they did ask me to pay extra and refuse a refund!

There are brands that are much better such as ANOVA and Joule - which I would buy now but can't as they refuse to refund me. Most importantly, I could not imagine a reason why ordering with this company and dealing with this would be worth it?

What I can say is that I hope they send me a working machine before the one-year warranty runs out. As when contacting the seller for the "fourth" refund. Comments were "we can send you another one ***because it is still in warranty***". So is the plan to send me broken ones until it is not?

The machine itself - it looks a little flimsy and plasticky, but I can't comment on how it works because I have yet to receive a working machine!

Edit - I have reworded parts of this review to more appropriately express the shortcomings and less so, my frustration.

I bought the Anova Precision heater from this company (SVT) through Amazon. It arrived on time, but the item was unusually noisy, so I opened a request to this effect which is recorded by Amazon. On the same day I received the email response, "Request closed, issued replacement without return". After several days of inertia, I telephoned SVT directly to be informed that, whilst it had supplied the product in question it had no record of the defect nor had it issued the above response, referring me to Amazon's customer service department. However, Amazon confirmed that it was SVT, as the supplier, who had closed my request and issued the notification referred to. Ultimately, Amazon has refunded my payment 3 weeks after I first ordered the item. In the interim I had been without a properly functioning product and I've had the runaround in seeking a solution. Whether or not dishonesty, incompetence or a combination of both are to blame, the net effect is customer dissatisfaction.

(Added 26 Jan 2020) Having received the response below which amounts to no more than prevarication based upon an incorrect recital of facts, I produced the sales invoice which proves supply by SVT through the Amazon marketplace and payment received by SVT contrary to its representative's protestations. The sequel to my honest and accurate review (which has been properly verified) is a demonstration of the bumbling, misplaced effort this company would invest in shielding its posterior rather than addressing customer grievance in a timely and satisfactory manner.

Bags do not seal 100%, they also come to you sealed at both ends so i had to cut every single bag, waste of money, buy elsewhere if you want less hassle and they dont even answer emails

We should have read the reviews of the company before we purchased from them. Now we’ve spent too much for nothing.
Recently, we bought from SousVideTools a 6L Artame pressure cooker. When it arrived, we found out it was too small for us so we requested to return it for a bigger one. And then we learned that we’re going to pay for the return postage. In our disappointment, we opted for a refund and not buy a bigger one. In their email, they provided us with two sousvidetools addresses: one, their London office and the other their Head office in Lancaster. We sent it to their London office paying a little less than £17 for postage. Then we received a call from them that they received it but was sent to the wrong address and that we have to arrange for a further pickup and be sent to the right one. They offered to do it for another £12. We have to agree to have a peace of mind. Don’t ever, ever trust this company. I know this kind will not last long in business. Be warned...

Initially I seemed to very pleased with this company, after speaking with a team member I successfully ordered my sousvide vacuum sealer. It arrived the next day!
Within 5 minutes I knew it wasn't working. I phoned the helpline that came with the parcel NO ONE in. So I phoned Sousvide directly. The young man who took my call apologised for the machine not working and said they have had lots of people say that!!! WHY are you still selling this product?
I now had to upload a video to prove it wasn't working and then send off.I did this.
I then got a very blunt email saying that an engineer would look at it and then tell me it wasn't working ( Ive just sent you a video!) And make sure I pack it very well as I would be liable for any damages!! It doesnt work!
I then had to go and find a local collection point.
I then got notice from DPD that they had received my parcel but NOTHING from Sousvide.
After over a week of them having my parcel returned I emailed to see why I had no correspondence or my money back.
Oh another problem!!!! Accounts should have processed last week. I was told it would be looked into. I then immediately got an email with an invoice to say my money had been returned.If I hadnt contacted them would my money have been returned???
I am so very disappointed with this company, I had to do all the work for their faulty product!
I have since used Andrew James and they seem are far more professional company.

This company is downright shady. Customer service aren’t able to make any decisions without going through the boss, so if he's away then don't expect a reply.

I sent back a faulty product which they claimed was working correctly. (It was an immersion circulator that was unable to hold temperature – fluctuating 2° either side of the target temperature - something that is just a little bit important in sous vide!) They begrudgingly refunded me 75% citing a "restocking" fee as the missing 25%.

They've basically now repackaged that dud product and are about to sell it to some other schmuck.

Alex Shannon and his colleagues should be ashamed of themselves.

i had the singularly worse ever customer service experience with this company. the manager swore at me and accused me of lying. NEVER BUY FROM THEM

I purchased 800 bags (packed in 100s) from this company, hands up I bought the wrong product so I called them and sales very helpfully said I could return any unopened packs and put me through to customer services.
Customer services seemed very uninterested and I had to follow up my call three days later.
Anyway, I had opened two bags so sent six back.
Initial price £69.14 
Adjusted price £31.18??????
Thankyou.

I returned a dehydrator appliance to SousVideTools that had a 20-hour maximum continuous runtime and bought on with a 48-hour timer as I considered a 20-hour appliance-husbanding obligation less than viable in a practical sense.

The legal implication of reading "turn off after 20 hours for at least 2 hours" in a SousVideTools dehydrator user manual is that the user accepts that both warranty and guarantee are invalidated if for any reason whatsoever they should fail to structure appropriately any day that their dehydrator takes a central role by having it switched on for any longer than its 20-hours. Devices with no timer will not switch themselves off at the 20 hours required to protect heater and fan.

Secondly, a machine-full of items that take more than 20 hours for one reason or another may have health risks from running to cold in the 2 hours or more of husbanding an obviously underpowered heater and fan by switch-off. Certain food safety cautions are often stressed for various riskier specific food types on how one starts a dehydration cycle, to avoid the formation of mould.

However the dehydrator appliance "corner" of this industry may well have a case to answer in terms discovery of whether food poisoning is routinely occurring in the UK via mickey 🐭 mouse dehydrator fans and heaters sold by many suppliers. SousVideTools with their "Hendi" and "BioChef"," or suppliers of several other brands seem also to skimp the relatively tiny cost of multi-program digital timers you'd find on a £30 microwave oven. Or in the meanest grade £3 schoolkids pocket calculator.

Is it time for food health authorities to look systematically at whether SousVideTools and its trader ilk are routinely endangering the health of too many healthseekers, ironically, via the perpetuation of unnecessarily unsafe appliances?

Oddly enough the keyword "support" fails completely to register a single hit at the SousVideTools site. This seems also the case with other suppliers of dehydrators using the recognisable plastic casing.