The Thermomix Friend® is designed to be used with the TM5 or TM6. The Thermomix Friend® cannot be compared to the TM5 or TM6, as its capabilities are very limited; i.e. the speed can be set up to 2, the temperature to Varoma and the time up to two hours, and it does not feature integrated scale.
Thus, the real benefit comes with parallel cooking, which starts with the preparation steps on the Thermomix®, including weighing the ingredients, outsourcing the cooking step to your Thermomix Friend® and then using the time gained to complete further dishes on the Thermomix®.
The Thermomix Friend® can also start cooking through manual settings outside guided cooking.