The meater


 
My main concern would be the longevity of the probes. Electronics and heat are not the best of friends! The probes also look pretty thick.
 
Yeah that is definitely a supercool idea, but as Steve said, high temperature electronics are usually rated to 105C so I'm not sure how it would handle a 200F butt. The specs do say 100C though! It probably transmits very infrequently as well which might make control using it more of an issue. I'm sure it is just some sort of bluetooth serial or similar that can be read by a generic bluetooth device.

We'll find out, when Smokin' Hardware gets one in January 2016 I guess
 
Did you read the part that each probe actually has two sensors? The electronics are stored in the tip of the probe where the meat temp is read and are protected from the high ambient temp of the smoker or grill. Simultaneously, the end of the probe reads the ambient or smoker temp and is rated to 527F! If you could read this info from an HM, then a version could be created that was just a simple box with no LCD or buttons to just supply power to a servo/fan. This seems like the holy grail of bbq control to me.
 
Yeah but 200F is still extremely hot for electronics, which the portion where the electronics are would be at. I don't have the technical ability to make something truly miniature either, but something 2.5"x1.5"x0.75" would not be out of the question.
 
Found this about them:
1) If internal temperature comes close to maximum the 212F or 100C, the RF range will start to reduce and you may lose connection. We will give warning before unsafe temperatures are reached. If it is exposed to that high temperature for prolonged time, battery life cycle will start to suffer.
Also remember your meat is completely ruined when it reaches 100C, it means there is no moisture left at all. It is actually very difficult to do that as the temperature tends to stall before meat becomes rock hard dry and temperature starts to rise again...
2) We have designed the product to handle flare ups. Actually motivation behind this product was when I burned cable on 2nd meat thermometer due flareups. We use high temperature ceramic material on antenna..
3) the probe battery is designed to last several years even in active use. However due the waterproof high temperature design, it is not replaceable.
4) radio frequencies tend to pass through BBQ / Oven metal cases quite well. These will reduce the range a bit, which is why we only claim 10 meter range which is achievable with typical phone and typical BBQ.
5) warranty details are being finished. We will offer typical retail electronics product warranty, we will stand by the product. This will be published on the project FAQ soon.
 
Very cool concept. I think a lot of people will be buying these once they are in the market and word spreads. This is of course assuming they are durable. Unfortunately I've been a 'beta tester" on too many products in the past by buying in early. I'm a customer, but I think I'll let others go first.
 
#3 could be make or break item on these,

Could still be 'a moron can't replace the battery' rather than, 'we glued the damn things together so tight you'll never get it apart' but I won't bet on it until somebody tries.

I was thinking about no more burning hair smell when I was trying to get the perfect MedRare/Med that I like. But after I bought, I realized I sear at 600+ degrees. So I'll definitely test out the battery overheating part.
 
Back from the dead, my Meater probes showed up this week (glad I forgot about them or I'd be ****ed). Anybody else? The app isn't great (Android), mostly fluff like the Anova app.
I got 2, so I'll start to work on getting the CHIP to talk to it. Maybe I'll actually use both kickstarter products I've bought.

Without digging through the threads - is the bluetooth on the Pi3/Zero-W supported by OpenWRT? I know bluetooth wasn't even on the horizon when Meater was first discussed.
 
Somewhat disappointed. I need some more time to diagnose, but neither probe worked well in it's maiden voyage. Full disclosure, my fried & his son came by, so I was distracted but I don't think that played into the probe issues.
Reverse seared 2 1.5" ribeyes yesterday. Meater probes were working, connected to phone. I placed them back in charger until steaks were ready to go on. I placed the probes in, past the line & almost up to the ceramic portion. Put on grill, dome temp read 290-300F.

1. I didn't 'set up a cook', so it didn't save the info. My mistake
2. Ambient temp doesn't work at room temp (hold in hand for 5-10sec & it starts reading 80-87F, when internal temp says 70-72F. During the portion of the cook where both probes were connected, ambient was 10-12F different on each probe, despite being placed next to each other, almost touching. It's possible the meat affected it, but I would expect closer. Perhaps they would have moved towards each other, had #3 not happened.
3. Halfway through the smoke (about 85-90F on the other steak), one probe dropped out & would not reconnect. Today, rebooted my phone & it mysteriously reconnected. the faulty probe somehow got listed as 'meater link probe (wifi)' until it reconnected. You can't remove probes from the 'add or remove probes' menu, so I think it was software.
4. Range from probe to phone was non-existent, they claim 10m through metal. Closing the lid of my big steel keg would cause both probes to drop almost every time, the probe that worked full cook would stay connected sometimes. Again, I was distracted, so I will troubleshoot a bit more.
 
I've got mine too and have paired it to the Pi (the standard HeaterMeter build doesn't include all the bluetooth stuff though so you have to do this on on the side). Hey great news, they didn't implement a standard interface, they have built a custom vendor-specific HCI which means nothing off the shelf can talk to it. Their developer API is for pulling info from the app on a phone, not for actually interfacing to the device. Anything for getting it to work directly to HeaterMeter would have to be reverse engineered from RF snooping. I stuck it on my fridge and haven't even installed the app to try it beyond that.
 

 

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