There's three sub-wins to unattended SV cooking (warning: I am unlikely to ever shut up about this).<p>First, you can cook a meal for your family in 5 minutes before you leave for work. You can already do that with a crock pot (you don't know how amazing crock pots are until you have kids and a working spouse), but only for braise cuts, and only for braised applications.<p>Second, you can cook a meal, cool it rapidly, and store it in the fridge for later. In other words, you can cook a week's meals on Sunday night, and bust them out night after night.<p>Third, you can prep a meal, seal it, stick it in the fridge, and throw it in the SV when you're ready to cook it.<p>Unlike microwave, "boil-in-the-bag", or crock-pot meals, SV will do these things <i>and</i> produce a restaurant-caliber protein for you more reliably than if you cooked it conventionally with your full attention.