I've been using the $99 Meater Plus, a wireless thermometer for the last six weeks. I've had sufficient experience now to post a review. The product is a single metal probe that's inserted into the meat and, using its app, allows you to read both the temperature of the meat and the air temp outside in the grill around the meat. I was skeptical at first that it could provide a signal through the thick steel lid of my Yoder as well as the stainless steel of my M Grill. For comparison, I also used my wired Fireboard Gen 1 with two probes right next to the Meater.
Initially I had a problem pairing the device with my iPhone, but after a few tries it finally connected. From then on, whenever I removed the Meater from its case, it automatically was recognized by the app.
So how well did it work? It measured both the ambient air and the meat consistently and accurately. It was always within a degree or so of the Fireboard probes. The Meater Plus has the added benefit over the Meater to work over a longer range. Its bamboo storage case provides a relay to your phone, and they claim it can connect up to 165 feet away. In practice I found it worked up to about 25 - 40 feet through a couple of walls. Occasionally I'd get a disconnect alert, but it quickly reconnected on its own.
The convenience of a wireless thermometer is generally an advantage over wired, but not always. It's a larger probe than a wired probe and has to be inserted into the meat a certain amount, defined by a line on the probe, to allow part of the probe to read the air and part the meat. You also need to be careful to put the probe in from the edge, parallel to the grill surface when probing steak, so you can turn the steak over without the end of the probe touching the hot grill. When that happened, an alarm sounded, telling me to remove it from the grill before damage occurs. It was ideal for cooking a steak on my M16 and never having to set up my Fireboard. The temperature readings were not instantaneous and look a while to stabilize, perhaps 20 - 30 seconds.
The device also should be a great way to monitor a roast or whole chicken on a rotisserie.
The probe is water-resistant, and after each use you can wash it under water. The app also predicts cooking time after selecting what you're cooking and how you want it done. It then displays the cooking time estimate that continually updates, along with displaying the two temperatures. The app's functions are pretty basic and the cooking time is not all that accurate. Also, it's not designed to predict the time of a long smoke.
The probe is stored in a bamboo box with a AAA battery and a blinking light that has the charging and relay electronics within. It's a clever design, but the bamboo gets pretty dirty and easily stained when working around a grill.
Over all the product worked well, better than I expected. I'm always untangling wires with my Fireboard, even though I use their silicone spools to store my probes. So eliminating the wires has some benefits. But I would gladly put up with that inconvenience for the benefits of the Fireboard that are many: long distance remote monitoring over the cloud, multiple probes, recording my cooks, the graphing and documenting great customer support, and being able to go back and reference prior cooks. They're really not comparable and not meant to be. One's a cool gadget and the other is a serious cooking system. At $100, the Meater+ is more than half the cost of the Fireboard. But overall it's a decent product.
I should add - based on comments below - that customer service was less than stelar the one time I contacted them. When I had trouble connecting the first time, it took them 3 days to answer an email.
Initially I had a problem pairing the device with my iPhone, but after a few tries it finally connected. From then on, whenever I removed the Meater from its case, it automatically was recognized by the app.
So how well did it work? It measured both the ambient air and the meat consistently and accurately. It was always within a degree or so of the Fireboard probes. The Meater Plus has the added benefit over the Meater to work over a longer range. Its bamboo storage case provides a relay to your phone, and they claim it can connect up to 165 feet away. In practice I found it worked up to about 25 - 40 feet through a couple of walls. Occasionally I'd get a disconnect alert, but it quickly reconnected on its own.
The convenience of a wireless thermometer is generally an advantage over wired, but not always. It's a larger probe than a wired probe and has to be inserted into the meat a certain amount, defined by a line on the probe, to allow part of the probe to read the air and part the meat. You also need to be careful to put the probe in from the edge, parallel to the grill surface when probing steak, so you can turn the steak over without the end of the probe touching the hot grill. When that happened, an alarm sounded, telling me to remove it from the grill before damage occurs. It was ideal for cooking a steak on my M16 and never having to set up my Fireboard. The temperature readings were not instantaneous and look a while to stabilize, perhaps 20 - 30 seconds.
The device also should be a great way to monitor a roast or whole chicken on a rotisserie.
The probe is water-resistant, and after each use you can wash it under water. The app also predicts cooking time after selecting what you're cooking and how you want it done. It then displays the cooking time estimate that continually updates, along with displaying the two temperatures. The app's functions are pretty basic and the cooking time is not all that accurate. Also, it's not designed to predict the time of a long smoke.
The probe is stored in a bamboo box with a AAA battery and a blinking light that has the charging and relay electronics within. It's a clever design, but the bamboo gets pretty dirty and easily stained when working around a grill.
Over all the product worked well, better than I expected. I'm always untangling wires with my Fireboard, even though I use their silicone spools to store my probes. So eliminating the wires has some benefits. But I would gladly put up with that inconvenience for the benefits of the Fireboard that are many: long distance remote monitoring over the cloud, multiple probes, recording my cooks, the graphing and documenting great customer support, and being able to go back and reference prior cooks. They're really not comparable and not meant to be. One's a cool gadget and the other is a serious cooking system. At $100, the Meater+ is more than half the cost of the Fireboard. But overall it's a decent product.
I should add - based on comments below - that customer service was less than stelar the one time I contacted them. When I had trouble connecting the first time, it took them 3 days to answer an email.
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