My original "Crock Watcher", bought in the late 1970s/early 1980s, is still going strong. About 8 years ago I decided to upgrade, just because the first one was looking really dated, and I thought a new one might be better, for some reason. I was, in fact, ready to toss the old one out, on the premise that I only needed one. Turns out, the only advantage the new one has over the old is size. The old one has a feature which I love; it can be set to be on high until it reaches heat, about 1 & a half hours, and then switches automatically to low. New ones don't do that. Also, the temps on new ones appear to be higher than in the old ones, which isn't always a good thing. Needless to say, I never tossed the dated old one, and have, on occasion (Thanksgiving mostly) found that I don't mind having 2 slow cookers at all.