Is The Smokefire a Failure or Success and What Proves It?


 
This one fared well...

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Weber Smokefire proves it's value in KCBS competition

Just over a week ago, I took my Weber Smokefire EX6 up to Susanville for a KCBS four meat competition. Normally, I use a team of two 22" WSM's and an 18" WSM. However, this competition was up at 4000' in elevation and the night time low was around freezing. After living the mountains of Colorado...
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C Lewis said:
Overall I would say that the Smokefire is accepted and a success, but the catastrophic launch did them damage that may never heal. In a world prior to Youtube and social media, it may not have been quite as big of a deal.
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This part about social media is really insightful, as is personal experience. I know my brother won't stock SmokeFire at his Ace Hardware because of his personal experience using the original product. Has the product improved? Yes. What will it take to get him to give it another shot? Probably a radically redesigned product...but I'm not sure he wants to cannibalize Traeger sales. Ace has grills running in their own lanes...Weber for charcoal/gas grills, BGE for smokers, and Traeger for pellet grills. Not sure they want to upset the apple cart.
 
Chris Allingham said:
Never seen one before. Looks pretty substantial. Smart to use a third-party controller than to invent your own.

Don't want to hijack this thread...back to SF discussion. :)
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They just came out late last year. They look cool but I’ll get their offset first. Big fan of LSG
 
DanHoo said:
This one fared well...

View attachment 55496

tvwbb.com

Weber Smokefire proves it's value in KCBS competition

Just over a week ago, I took my Weber Smokefire EX6 up to Susanville for a KCBS four meat competition. Normally, I use a team of two 22" WSM's and an 18" WSM. However, this competition was up at 4000' in elevation and the night time low was around freezing. After living the mountains of Colorado...
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Key words “this one”…
Only time will tell the fate.
 
Darian Hofer said:
Key words “this one”…
Only time will tell the fate.
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Well....they don’t magically s*** the bed. I’ll submit 99.9% of Smokefire “issues” are nothing more than end user caused.

In the off chance a software update causes issues (unlikely) the hard parts are good.
 
Of course. Because I can ask every guy why he had a failure and guys being guys, they will readily admit they screwed up......

Any data to refute my claim?
 
I think you've spoken loudly that you don't know 99.9% issues are attributed to user-error, lol.

It's important that folks know some of the SF issues lie in the hands of Weber; I have a hunch they own a percentage greater than 0.1% of that liability. But I repeat that I am generally pleased with my second SF purchase.
 
BFletcher said:
Is there data to substantiate this claim? If it is accurate then how would you propose Weber address it?
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Not a pellet griller here, but for the second part of the question, if Weber is going to offer a grill that runs itself, then it really ought to succeed in doing that for a vast majority of even unskilled users. Again, no knock against anybody on this forum. I imagine the ultimate goal should be like an ipad shuffle or an automatic transmission, in the sense that while they are both complex pieces of technology, the average user can operate them fairly perfectly after about 30 seconds.
 
BFletcher said:
Is there data to substantiate this claim? If it is accurate then how would you propose Weber address it?
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I think that it's impossible to gather that data. Guys, I followed our early adopters struggles with this grill. I had seen the "cone of death" in my RecTec and Camp Chef so I focused on improving pellet flow the day I assembled my grill. I have been ridiculed in the FB group for suggesting that people wax the interior of their pellet hopper. It works with every pellet grill I've owned but the "Internet Expert" mocked the idea. I don't have flameouts. When a new owner doesn't remove the finger guard and has a flameout, is that operator error or design shortfall? I have responded to hundreds of posts about flameouts and once the owners adjust how they operate the grill the flameouts cease. BUT, that's an operating technique designed to overcome the hopper design. I've seen several auger motors broken loose from the mounts because of an auger jam. Weber added another bolt to the mount to address it. However, if the owner had cleaned out the dust that got packed into the auger tube, maybe, he could have prevented that. The data ain't black and white guys. Putting a number on the percentage of operator error problems is a guess. My favorite cooker is that one that gives me great tasting food and not the one that's most convenient. The taste my Smokefire puts on food is the best of any pellet grill I've owned. I'll deal with the traits to enjoy the food.
 
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TimA said:
Of course. Because I can ask every guy why he had a failure and guys being guys, they will readily admit they screwed up......

Any data to refute my claim?
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I know grilling tends to be male dominated, but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess gals own more than .1 percent of SmokeFires. If we’re going to stereotype, they could be more likely to read the manual too.

I‘d like to think after a decade of using pellet grills the issues I encountered were product issues and not something I caused. However, who knows. Maybe I was too close to the grill and caused electrical interference to make the probes stop reading mid cook or the controller to pick random set temps 75 degrees above or below what the display said the grill was set to. Maybe I poured the pellets into the hopper too quickly or too slowly and that’s what caused it to take 5-10 minutes one cook to go from 225-500 for a reverse sear versus 45 minutes the next cook. Maybe it was protesting when I cooked choice steaks instead of prime?
 
BFletcher said:
I think you've spoken loudly that you don't know 99.9% issues are attributed to user-error, lol.

It's important that folks know some of the SF issues lie in the hands of Weber; I have a hunch they own a percentage greater than 0.1% of that liability. But I repeat that I am generally pleased with my second SF purchase.
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And of course we’ve established that there isn’t a snowballs chance in hell of refuting my claim with any success, so there’s that...

Let’s not get silly, the point went way over your head. But of course, I’m game for needless debate with no end game.
Darian Hofer said:
If 99.9% of the issues were only user errors why has Weber made all the changes in hardware and software updates since Gen 1 problems?
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Because that’s what happens with software. Updated but not necessarily because of an issue. New features, a better user experience, etc. I will also toss myself in the fire and say that another 99.9% of issues with the cooker itself are software and not hard parts. Fire suit on, I’m ready fellas.

You guys are jumping on my number, yet offering nothing else. Because you can’t. Of course there’s no data to back that up, it’s an irrelevant number tossed out to make the point that I believe 100% that most of the issues are user error. Who cares if that number is 23.87%, or 52%, or 99.9%, it’s irrelevant. Good grief. 🙄
 
Shane - glitchy said:
I know grilling tends to be male dominated, but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess gals own more than .1 percent of SmokeFires. If we’re going to stereotype, they could be more likely to read the manual too.
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Now dammit Shane, don’t do that! If you can’t provide data....😂

Of course it’s male dominated. There’s no stereotyping involved, come on now. I could say females may also be more likely to assemble wrong. Or not know how to connect to an app. Or could toss age in there with gizmos and.....it’s a slippery slope. This is why we don’t go down that road, unfortunately modern society really loves to get hurt feelings and cry.


This is getting silly, if y’all are retired and that’s all anyone has to do during the day, yikes. Maybe I won’t look forward to those days🤣
 
TimA said:
Now dammit Shane, don’t do that! If you can’t provide data....😂

Of course it’s male dominated. There’s no stereotyping involved, come on now. I could say females may also be more likely to assemble wrong. Or not know how to connect to an app. Or could toss age in there with gizmos and.....it’s a slippery slope. This is why we don’t go down that road, unfortunately modern society really loves to get hurt feelings and cry.


This is getting silly, if y’all are retired and that’s all anyone has to do during the day, yikes. Maybe I won’t look forward to those days🤣
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I spend a lot of time trying to help new owners figure this grill out. I try to deal in fact and not conjecture so that prospective owners have correct info to make their decision. They read too much misleading info on the internet. Therefore, when someone throws something out as fact and I know it's not, I'm going to question the statement. Our FB group has 7237 members and 2% are female. That's fact. They tend to follow the BILT app and assemble the grill correctly. That's an observation. Also, I'm old and technology is no mystery. I'm retired and my current hobby is studying BBQ and the Smokefire and helping people use it right. It takes my mind off the aches, pains, and heart excursions we old farts deal with. Meanwhile, back to the original subject: My opinion on the grill is that it's a technical success so I'm hoping that it's enough of a business success that Weber won't drop the line and replacement parts.
 
Again, not a pellet griller here, so I am postulating here. I think we also need to account for various factors that are beyond Weber or the user's control. A windy day. A gust of wind. The moisture content of the various pellets. The humidity and air temperature. The altitude.

Weber doesn't necessarily need to make a grill that will work for in Antarctica, on Bikini atoll, or on top of Mt. Kilimanjaro, but I believe the onus is on the manufacturer to make a product that basically works pretty well for the vast majority of its users. Their gas grills and charcoal grills are market leaders because they meet that standard.
 
Chris Allingham said:
This part about social media is really insightful, as is personal experience. I know my brother won't stock SmokeFire at his Ace Hardware because of his personal experience using the original product. Has the product improved? Yes. What will it take to get him to give it another shot? Probably a radically redesigned product...but I'm not sure he wants to cannibalize Traeger sales. Ace has grills running in their own lanes...Weber for charcoal/gas grills, BGE for smokers, and Traeger for pellet grills. Not sure they want to upset the apple cart.
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Why would he want to upset the apple cart and by the way my local Ace does the same thing for each category. So you carry the brand leader in Weber for charcoal/gas quality products I am talking about, BGE and Traeger these are all well respected brands by product category and the average person on the streets know these products and names.

I will bet with zero data behind it that if you asked 30 people or more what the Weber Kamado was they would not have a clue nor the Smokefire. Pretty hard to know about a product when its not available to see anywhere we know of these products cause we are on a Weber forum the average person is most likley not a member so they have no clue.
 
Lew Newby said:
My opinion on the grill is that it's a technical success so I'm hoping that it's enough of a business success that Weber won't drop the line and replacement
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Their have been many products over the years that might have been a technical success but not a sales success. What is the definition of a technical success? On the grill side is it the food don't know? At the expense of well you should really should remove the finger guard to help with pellet bridging obviously not Weber's advice or you need a pellet insert which cut down on capacity for the pellets, Lew you found a workaround for that which works for you and probably others, the software needs multiple revisions with some of them causing more problems after those revisions. The auger needed to be re-designed and replaced by the way we said you don't need a grease tray at launch a selling point then of course shortly after we recommend that you use a grease tray. Of course all the problems were user error we just kind of threw this stuff and advice in. :unsure: By the way and Bruno said it you need to use our pellets thats Weber saying that not me praying that you can find them online you can but HD nor Lowes nor my Ace carry them in stock can ship to store which if someone has a brain fart and runs low going into their cook for July 4th they are kind of screwed but of course they will just buy some other brand sold locally maybe they work maybe they don't.

Again I don't see Weber giving up on this really don't and sure there will be further improvements but everyone else including Traeger will be doing the same thing so to me its kind of a wash. I kind of have a problem with this user error deal there is another forum for SmokeFire that starts with a W on that forum there is nothing ever wrong with the SmokeFire its always seems to me same posters that all the users having a problem are bascially morons not that exact language but you know what I mean.
 
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