Can you or someone explain to me why you need or want Bluetooth on a sous vide circulator?

You already have to be physically next to it put your food into the water bath. It makes no sense to pull out your phone and launch an app to turn it on and set the temp when you're already physically standing right next to it, and I've never heard of any sous vide recipes that require you to change the water temp partway through cooking, so there's no need to change the temperature remotely.

The only thing I could possibly see wanting a Bluetooth app for is monitoring the water temperature in case it's gone wonky, but in the 5+ years I've had my Anova, it's always been flawless.

After the first week or so I ended up ignoring the bluetooth, and liked cooking so much more without trying to connect to the thing. I got the newer version with Wifi which connects well every time, but I don't care about the connection at all, and so don't bother.

As for cooking, I absolutely love it. Even for things I can cook fine in a pan, I much prefer the low-stress of making a steak in the bath and then taking it out and finishing it in the pan whenever I'm ready.

On lazy/busy days, we'll fire up the sous vide a little after lunch time, and throw in something frozen, knowing that all we have to do for dinner is figure out a side.

ah, I explicitly bought the anova because you don't need bluetooth to use it unlike the joule. I treat it like a toaster: plug it in, turn it on, cook. Never once tried the smart features cause I expect it to stink as you've seen.