Asklemmy

Nope. Just throw the ingredients into the machine and turn it on. my machine won't do anything for the first few minutes then it'll start doing it's thing. In about an hour and 20 minutes later it'll beep to let you know to add nuts/raisins etc (If you so desire) and after that it'll start the actual baking process.

From the time it's turned on it takes 3 hours and ten minutes before it's finished. at that point you can either pop the loaf out or it'll go into 'warming mode" and just sit there and keep itself warm.

I can also do bagels and pizza dough for it, which works well. Saves a lot of the effort of beating up the dough.

There are tons of no-kneed bread recipes that are excellent. Depends on what type of bread you want to make. If you're looking to make rustic type boules the no-need recipes work great. For other types of bread that require kneeling, a stand mixer is invaluable.

A little late but just to add to my other reply, most breadmakers have a dough setting that allows you to toss your ingredients in and it'll just make the dough for you. Then you can take the dough and bake it the rest of the way the old fashioned way. (It's the way I make bagels and pizza dough)

I highly recommend one just for the ease of use. There's lots of good recipes online. One tip is if your machine seems to struggle a bit when it's kneading, just add a bit more water/milk to the recipe to smooth it out.