MEATER Review : NOT a cheater

Hey all,

So I got my MEATER a few days ago and finally got around to using it for the first time. I smoked a full packer brisket in my kamado as I really wanted to give it a good trial / workout.

-MEATER is a bit different than most probes so it can't be inserted into the top of the meat. This is because the ambient temp probe is on the end, so you'll want to insert the probe into the side of the meat. This was a bit strange for me but once I got the probe in it wasn't an issue.

-Overall the cook was about 12 hours and the MEATER maintained constant connection (with the exception of a few minutes once I wrapped in foil for the rest) the entire time. The battery held up just fine and I was pretty impressed in that sense.

-The App is easy to use but it's kind of goofy... it wants to estimate the time of a cook and initially I set it up for a brisket cook to 203° internal temp and it estimated a 2 hour cook at about 275°. haha As the cook went on the estimated time did adjust and within about 2 hours it was estimating about 8 more hours. So it did adjust quite well after a while. Something I noted was that I had the internal temp set to 203° but once it hit 195° it wanted me to "rest" the meat all the way up to 203°. haha Other than that I had no issues with the app and it was pretty easy to use overall.

-I used the Smoke as kind of a gauge to see how close the MEATER was in terms of ambient temp and while there was a small difference, for the most part I trust the MEATER's sensor. Initially I had the Smoke probe on the right side of the brisket and the MEATER on the left, but once I moved the Smoke to within 2" of the MEATER probe I found the temp differential was between 5-10°.

-Range : I had heard the range was super low, less than 10 feet from some of the "early reviews" but I had mine at about 25 feet for most of the afternoon and had no connection issues. Again, this is with a 5+ year old tablet so I wasn't expecting the Bluetooth to be so capable. The only time I lost connection was when I foiled over the chafing dish and left the meat to rest. It lost connection for about a minute or two, but then it regained and worked just fine for the entire rest. My only other experience with Bluetooth thermometers was the iGrill2 and while I loved it, it was losing connection every 10-15 minutes.

-Overall I have no real issues with the probe. I've made a small Imgur album showing my setup, but nothing major.

https://imgur.com/a/HJ2WI

Final notes : Only thing I don't like about the app is the way that "estimated time" takes up probably 50% of the screen, while the ambient and internal temps are pretty small in comparison. This isn't a problem if you have your phone in your hand, but I was using my tablet and had it on charge about 10 feet away from me. I'm doing a pork butt tonight / tomorrow morning as well as a few chickens, so I'll be using both the Smoke and the MEATER again and keep running the MEATER through its paces. My offset smoker is at a welder getting a roof put on, but once I get it back I'll start doing some tests with it. I'm not so certain the range will be as good in the offset as it is in the kamado, but we'll see.

So I just finished up smoking a pork shoulder and a whole chicken. I used the same setup as before with the MEATER probe in the side of the butt, and the Smoke probe very close to the MEATER ambient probe. It was a 9 hour smoke and again I maintained connection with only a single loss of connection which lasted just a few seconds.

Once the butt was finished I pulled the MEATER and put it right into the breast of a whole chicken and roasted it at 375F. MEATER performed well with no issues... pretty impressed overall.

m-fine said:

Anyone able to test the range when it is in something like a Lang or Shirley?

Click to expand...

I should get my offset smoker back from the welder tomorrow, so I'll test out the range inside it over the next few days and post the results in this thread.

Good morning All,

So I got my offset back from the welder and it has a nice new roof on it. I'm smoking a full pork shoulder today so I was anxious to test out the MEATER in the offset smoker. After messing around with it for a while I got to a point where I felt comfortable with the Bluetooth range keeping a constant connection : 12 ft.

I'm not super excited about that low range, but I will say that this is just my first test with only a single tablet. Something which is kind of cool though is the MEATER-Link which allows you to connect the MEATER via wi-fi. So I leave my wi-fi and Bluetooth tablet outside where it can connect to both the MEATER and my home wi-fi, and then my phone acts as a "Link" and is connected via wi-fi. So from there the range is as far as I want it to be, and I don't need any other extensions to make it work. I thought I would need the MEATER Block to make the Link work, but nope... any wi-fi gadget on the network can connect and pick up the data from the device which is connected via Bluetooth to the MEATER probe.

So while it's not ideal I will say it's still interesting and I'll try setting it up again with some different phones and see if I get different results.

So I smoked a full pork shoulder yesterday on my Johnson Smokers offset smoker and used the MEATER and the Thermoworks smoke to monitor the cook. The Bluetooth range out of the offset from the MEATER is about 12 ft, so I used an old tablet I had to act as a link between the MEATER probe and my phone. I put the tablet on a chair next to my smoker, connected it to the MEATER probe via Bluetooh, and put the tablet in a piece of tupperware to keep the rain off of it. So all day long, probably 10 hours or so, I ran the MEATER using the Meater-Link and it was so simple to use.

As others mentioned this Meater-Link is the same functionality provided by the Thermworks Gateway ($89).

So far I have about 20+ hours of MEATER usage and it's performed quite well. I was nervous to wash the probe but I gave it a good washing with soap, water, and the back side of a sponge (per the directions given in the MEATER.com FAQ) and it cleaned up nicely and is still working just fine. That Meater-Link is really amazing and I'm glad they built that in and made it so easy to use.