My Joule is not "whisper quiet", but other units are

Just received a white Joule via Amazon. Unboxed & cooking up some hard "boiled" eggs while I'm plannign sous-vide recipes for the rest of the week.

My desk is about 30 feet away from our open-plan kitchen and unfortunately the Joule's motor noise is audible and annoying. It's not horrible. But it's the loudest thing in the room. It's probably 50 dB. I could wear headphones or enclose the Joule in a plastic cooler... but like other posters here, it got me wondering if this level of operating noise is "normal."

Did a quick survey of youtube, and it seems like some units make noise, and others don't. What gives?

"whisper quiet" joules:

my joule sounds like these... not exactly "whisper quiet":

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Comments

fisher23

Putting something under the cooking container helps, i.e. a towel, trivet etc. The actual container or pot you cook in makes a huge difference, try a different pot and see if that makes a difference.

100ideas_752730

I tried holding the joule in one hand and a large plastic measuring cup in the other such that the joule was immersed in water in the center of the cup. It is still noisy. Sounds like the motor is unbalanced.

brian_martin2001

If you suspect there is something wrong with your unit, contact ChefSteps by opening up a halo ticket in the app. I believe they talked about the sound, but I cannot find the thread. If it really is 50 dB, there really might be something wrong with your unit. Did you use a calibrated decibel meter to measure the volume, or just ballparking it?

Geoff_Shepherd_727880

My Joule is apparently powered by a trained bee. The poor fella is inside there buzzing round and round. All kidding aside, it sounds exactly like a PWM BLDC motor controller with a drive frequency around 500 Hz. It sweeps up to that steady frequency when starting. When stopping, the buzz immediately cuts out, which tells me it's not something mechanical like the impeller, but the actual electronic drive signal resonating in some component like the motor windings or a noisy capacitor. Just my theory anyway. Mine sounds like the second set of videos.

Measured using Decibel X on my iPhone 7 Plus, my Joule comes in at around 42 dB at about 1 meter away, and 50 db with the phone mic held within inches of the unit. No idea on the app's accuracy. Practically speaking, the buzzing noise is easily masked by turning on some background music. I do wish it were truly silent like the first set of videos above.

I wonder if something changed in the hardware production or firmware.

Dat_Phan_279256

I've had 3 joules total in my possession (own 2, one was returned for a replacement) and they all had a very audible whir. I just thought the whisper quiet thing was bunk, but watching the videos you posted make me think that there must be some inconsistency across units. Probably my least favorite thing about my Joules. I definitely place them out of earshot if I can.