I've been a sucker (fan?) for crowdfunded gadgets, and I was in on the Meater Block campaign a couple of years ago (yeah, it took a long time to get shipped). It's a rainy day, my wife had foot surgery, so I'm her gofer and caretaker right now and i had time to kill. Here's my amateur review. Forgive me in advance for any errors I might have made--I'm using an old man's memory for the details (he didn't need it any more
).
https://meater.com/https://store-us.meater.com/products/meater-blockWhat is it? I have the Meater Block. It's four cable-less probes and a charger/bluetooth/wifi block that charges the probes (uses batteries), aggregates the temperatures, and sends them to your wifi. What is unique about these probes is that the battery is near the tip where it sits in the meat and never sees pit temperature. There's a meat temp probe at the pointy end and a pit (or near the meat, really) probe at the base. I say that because the area an inch or so from the meat doesn't always see pit temperature based on evaporation etc from the meat. At any rate, if you rotisserie, these work perfectly because there's no cable. There's an indented ring around the probe which is the insert limit--just don't bury the whole probe in the meat.
How it works? The bluetooth from the probes will pair with the block, or can pair directly with a phone. The app has Android and IOS versions. I did have trouble with the phone picking up the probes before they paired with the block, but as long as I started the phone app bluetooth after the probes were paired it worked as advertised. The block sends wifi data to your network, and to Meater Cloud. You see output on the Meater app. You can post your cook real-time for people to see via Meter Cloud, but that's not something I do, so I haven't tested it.
The app? It lets you pick a desired temp for each probe. When I cooked my last two turkey breasts I put four probes in, one in each half, and monitored the cook via wifi. I played nine holes of golf and kept an eye on the cook on my phone while I was out. The app will notify when the food hits set temperature. Pretty much similar to other probe apps out there except for internet access.
Limitations? My Memphis Pros have double wall lids so the probes' bluetooth range is very short. I had to keep the Meater Block next to the pit or the bluetooth was too weak to stay paired. The block had no trouble picking up my wifi network out on the patio but I have a pretty strong router signal. The block interface is pretty basic, kind of an up/down and enter setup, but it works fine once setup is done.
Accuracy? Pretty close to a Thermoworks probed near the Meater probe. I haven't done anything scientific to check how close.
Recommendations? I wouldn't buy it if I already had reliable wired probes and didn't do rotisserie or need internet monitoring. It's now my probe of choice, since it's already here, I'm a lazy cook, and I like that I can run an errand or two and still keep and eye on the cook.
There is also a single probe with block, but I can't tell you if it works the same as the multiple probe setup. I think there's also an older probe version with less bluetooth range available (I'd guess until stock is gone).
I'll try to answer any questions you might have.
Dan
