ExpandIt looks like a cool idea.
How powerful is it? What's the stirring mechanism you're proposing?
I just bought one of these, at the upper end of the price range you mention. On the plus side, it has a magnetic stirrer, which is important for my purposes (pasteurizing ice cream). It lets it cook with no chance of scorching or unevenness, and minimal evaporation. And it's very precise. On the minus side, it's probably not repairable, and it's underpowered. Wattage isn't listed anywhere, but I'm guessing it's around 200W or so. I bring a pot up to temperature on the stove and use the hot plate to hold it for 30 minutes or so.
Our device will have 1500 W power, mainly restricted by the wall outlet in US. May be we will make a 2000W EU/UK version if there is demand. So in that sense, we make this more suitable for cooking. The precision would be around 0.5 C / 1 F which is sufficient for most cooking uses.
So in that sense our device is more directed towards cooking whereas the one you have more towards lab use.
We are thinking of a few stirring mechanisms, but most likely it would be something like 'Stirmate (eG-friendly Amazon.com link)' (may be we will collaborate with them if they are open to it). We have a 9V power outlet which should be able to plug in a stirrer, or a sous-vide water circulator or a fan or something else.
P.S. Signup on the mailing list if this is interesting for you. We would most likely end up crowd funding it and you may be interested.
