iCelsius?

[Mal Passado]

Well....Finally received my iCelsius in the mail. I received a mailing confirmation on Monday and the unit arrived on Friday. A long wait for an order on-line. From time of order to delivery was 32 days.

Yes the cables are a little difficult to manage...They aren't clearly marked which one is probe 1 and probe 2 (I rubbed the end of the probe to see which temp went up and then marked probed one with a piece of white tape). The cables have a memory and was unable to place in the smoker without them moving all over. I finally put an alligator clip and held for a little and then had to add a second to keep the probe in place. Maybe after a couple of uses this will be corrected. I have a BGE and the cable is between the bowl and lid and after the cook the cable was flatten and I was concerned, but they recovered after about an hour.

The set up was actually very easy. I am not the most tech savoy person, but can still feel my way through the dark. I was concerned based on posts about the remote monitoring. I just went to the iCelsius site and watched the video in their support section. The video "How to configure to remote mode". Followed the directions and was monitoring the temps from my iPhone. Maybe 5 minutes of time to connect. So I can monitor my temps using local wifi from the iCelsius or from my home wifi that transmits to my iPhone. Either way was cool that I could monitor my temps from the living room or from my sons baseball game 5 miles away. All from my iPhone.

Just be careful when setting up the remote monitoring for your iPhone. During the set-up, you can decide on the frequency of up-dates sent to your phone. I chose every 10 minutes, but quickly found out that seems like an eternity to know your pit temps. On the iPhone you are unable to change this. I believe they have an update coming to their app to correct this.

I made a trial run just measuring ambient temperature to see how everything worked and had no issues. On Sunday I cooked pork ribs and went about 5 hours. I put one probe on one side of the grate and the other on the other side. I saw inconsistencies between the two, but each one wasn't exactly placed the same way. about 20deg. difference between the 2 probes. Also the probe temperature kept jumping from 209 to 280 back to 230, it seemed to take about 15 minutes to adjust, but during the initial start-up this could be devastating on the BGE with trying to adjust the temperature to 225deg. When it finally dialed in I was already at 245deg and needed to work to bring down the temp.

All in all, better than any thermometer I've had to date. Like any new toy there is always a feeling out time and trial and error.

[Jon Solberg]

Howdy! Any thoughts re the iCelsius vs the Range?

I dont think the Range has a wireless do they. I think their cooking probes are for phone and pad connections. I could be wrong on that.

What model are you looking at BB

[brigitbinns]

Howdy! Any thoughts re the iCelsius vs the Range?

[Huskee]

The iCelsius is no longer in Meathead's thermometer review column. Is that due to a lack of product being available or are there issues with the unit?

It's here.

[bep35]

The iCelsius is no longer in Meathead's thermometer review column. Is that due to a lack of product being available or are there issues with the unit?

[Christobol]

I ordered my first until a week before you, and was told 3 weeks. I had sent them an email on 8/1 asking if it's possible to mix 2 units with a total of 4 probes in a single app session and didn't get an answer until after I ordered the first until. So I ordered a second on the 13th. I have confirmations on both, but have yet to receive either and was told the second order wouldn't delay the first. I'm closing in on 4 weeks now....

I have my CyberQ and it's awesome, but I think having the iCelsius could help with my gas grill and the oven, and the second I plan on giving as a Christmas gift to either my dad or a brother.

Hopefully it shows up soon, sounds like they are making them to order in China...

[SurfsUp]

All clear now... those cables are crazy. I am always untangling them But I do like the fact that they are long.

[Mal Passado]

Another issue is the wait time for delivery. I bought the unit on 12-Aug and posted on the 14th that I was waiting for the unit and even jumped the gun and changed my sig. I received an order confirmation on 14-Aug and am still waiting for the delivery confirmation. In the meantime, I am reconsidering my purchase and am thinking of just going with the CyberQ, but I want to be able to receive up-dates to my cellphone from afar, like the days my wife springs a shopping trip on me in the middle of a cook.

[David Parrish]

Good info Jon. Keep us posted on your progress.

[Jon Solberg]

Please note these are just my observations. I do not intend them to be disparaging in any way

Challenge: Very unwieldy probe cables each one wanting to go its own way.

Solution: Used shrink tube to marry the two together to eliminate much of this. see above

Challenge: Poor connection point cables to ICel unit. NOTE:THIS IS MY PERCEPTION.

Solution: Velcro strap see above

Challenge: No way to tell which probe is which.

Solution: pending. Once I figure that out I will mark one with colored shrink tube.

Challenge: Could not connect via infra-structure or remote mode with iPad. Was able to during testing a.m. but could not connect at cook time.

Solution: pending. I believe this is an iPad issue. I need to do an os update. I connected directly to the unit for this cook.

Challenge: When using iPhone the display will not show 3 digits, example 224f reads 2..f. Temps are located below the main read out but very small.

Solution: Find my glasses. Seek out info on app setting???

Challenge: iCel unit is to heavy for my magnet thermometer bracket

Solution: pending Easy fix just not sure how I want to do this yet.

[David Parrish]

That's a very nifty setup. What were the challenges? and how did you solve them?

[Jon Solberg]

I have to say it has caused some challenges for me.

[Christobol]

I got my CyberQ Wifi installed this weekend and it's currently cooking a brisket. A third party app is doing the graphing of the temps and it's great. I still need to figure out how to export it, but i'll wait until the cook is done. With the iCelsius on the way I'm not sure I even need it anymore. It might have to go back, even though their app is much more refined than anything the CyberQ uses.

[Jerod Broussard]

That is sweet. I want one just for the graphs.

Which I could in turn post on the forum so people could see the cooking progression in the Pit Barrel....graph style.

[Jon Solberg]

Okay Surf Let me try and explain better.

The two cables on this are silicone covered and about 5' long. They seem to have a memory that wants to be coiled. Each one sort of going its own direction. To help avoid that I used shrink tube to marry them together for about 3 of the 5 feet.

The connector into the iCelcius unit is very micro USB like ( if not actually that) It is not very secure with those two 5' cable swinging off it. So I made up a strap using velcro to secure it. One that I can take on and off easily. A rubber band would have done the trick but it was raining and since I couldn't go out and trim bushes I made up the velcro strap.

Edit:

After some connection issues at go time its finally up and running.