Small Appliances To Connect Your Countertop

Your coffee maker might be smarter than you think. These are CNET’s picks for four of the best small appliances that use connected capabilities to help out in the kitchen. For more reviews of personal technology products, visit www.cnet.com.

Joule

CNET rating: 4.0 stars out of 5 (Excellent) The good: The Wi-Fi-enabled $200 Joule immersion circulator has an app that will teach you a thing or two about sous vide cooking. The Joule also works with Alexa, Amazon's digital assistant, to help connect your cooking to the rest of your smart home.

The bad: The lack of controls on the body of the Joule could be irritating if you want to just glance at the immersion circulator to get an update on its status. The integration with Alexa still has some kinks to work out.

The cost: $199.00

The bottom line: The Joule immersion circulator is the right product for the ambitious chef who's also into smart-home technology.

Anova Precision Cooker Bluetooth + Wi-Fi

CNET rating: 4.0 stars out of 5 (Excellent) The good: The easy-to-use $199 Anova Precision Cooker Bluetooth + Wi-Fi cooks food that retains its moisture and keeps a steady water-bath temperature. The device is also poised to have expanded connectivity to Apple's HomeKit in the future, a promising prospect if you're interested in smart home technology.

The bad: Other than the Wi-Fi, the Anova's latest precision cooker isn't much different than its predecessor, the $179 Anova Precision Cooker with Bluetooth. Like other sous vide devices, you still have to properly prep food in plastic bags before you place it in your water bath and sear some items at the end of your cooking time.

The cost: $126.96 to $179.99

The bottom line: The Anova Wi-Fi makes it easy to sous vide from afar, thanks to a response app that the company keeps improving. This is a good product to add to your own kitchen drawer.

Behmor Connected Coffee Brewer

CNET rating: 3.5 stars out of 5 (Very good) The good: The Behmor Connected Coffee Brewer makes excellent pots of drip and keeps it hot for hours. The coffee maker also links to a mobile app for an outstanding amount of control over the brewing process. Thanks to support for software updates, the appliance has the potential to improve over time.

The bad: Like other machines that heat their water first, the Behmor Connected Coffee Brewer needs more time to brew than its competition. The coffee maker also lacks features found in its predecessor such as tracking water temperature in real time and manual water release.

The cost: $169.99 to $199.99

The bottom line: The Behmor Connected Coffee Brewer makes great drip and uses its app smarts in clever ways but compared with ordinary luxury machines it's still kind of expensive.

Crock-Pot WeMo Smart Slow Cooker

CNET rating: 3.5 stars out of 5 (Very good) The good: You can monitor and adjust the Crock-Pot WeMo Smart Slow Cooker's timer and heat settings straight from the Belkin WeMo app. It makes a mean pot roast, too.

The bad: This slow cooker can't tell the difference between a Wi-Fi outage and a power outage, so spotty home Wi-Fi might return frequent error messages and cause you to question whether your food is safe to

eat.

The cost: $112.35 to $146.52

The bottom line: If you have a stable home Wi-Fi connection and want more control over your slow-cooked meals, Belkin and Jarden's Crock-Pot WeMo Smart Slow Cooker can give you the on-the-go access you crave. For everyone else, it's an overpriced slow cooker that makes a hands-off process much more involved.