Inkbird Wifi BBQ Monitor

[Darren Wright]

I finally got a chance to try the Inkbird IBBQ4T Wifi BBQ Monitor that I got for christmas out.

My old Weber Bluetooth iGrill worked, but connectivity to the app was spotty depending how far away I was or if the brick facade on our house was between it and my phone.

I started up the Inkbird and the app found it immediately and kept connectivity to it the whole time. The app was much cleaner and intuitive too, no ads like weber clutters theirs with.


I have a longer smoke planned for Sunday where I'll probably even leave the house for a while, which should still continue to work and give me temperature status and alerts.

I got mine from ebay, can find it cheaper, but will ship from overseas...

Inkbird Wifi Meat Thermometer Food Wireless Digital Cooking Kitchen Grill Smoker 705495126944 | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Inkbird Wifi Meat Thermometer Food Wireless Digital Cooking Kitchen Grill Smoker at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

 

[Don Baer]

I got the HAUEA Blue tooth for $40 about a month ago. I only used it once but it worked great. It only Blue tooth but it worked fine everywhere around the house.

Amazon.com

 

[Brent Dowell]

Sigh.....

Glad it works great.

 

[Charles Lent]

That looks like something worth investing in. I hate having to stand there the whole cooking time or "be very close by." This would let me get a little farther away and still "watch the cooking". Thanks.

Charley

 

[Brent Dowell]

So, do connect directly to the unit via wifi, or can you set it up to connect to your local network, then switch your phone back to your normal wifi connection?

 

[Ryan Mooney]

Sigh.....

I'm going to stick with my overpriced thermoworks unit with no remote access and only two probes for now (if nothing else it forces me to get off of the couch every so often ). I am curious about the probes, they look like something proprietary? The thermoworks uses K type thermocouples which has been handy because I was able to also buy a waterproof one and use it to do things like calibrate tanks at my friends brewery, adjust the temp on my sous vide, etc.. But mine has no remote access and costs ~2x for 1/2 as many probes (plus price/probe) so... yeah tempting in concept though.

Brent - you have a bunch of Pi's and a burning need for yet-another project... and you could add yet-more automation to your setup... https://learn.adafruit.com/max31855-thermocouple-python-library/overview

 

[Brent Dowell]

Brent - you have a bunch of Pi's and a burning need for yet-another project... and you could add yet-more automation to your setup... https://learn.adafruit.com/max31855-thermocouple-python-library/overview

LOL, oddly enough I already have a esp8266 module setup with a DS18b20 temperature module to monitor the coolant temperature of my k40 laser. I have another module connected to a display on my desktop to keep track of if the coolant is flowing and what the temperature is, because I don't want it freezing in the witner.

So familiar with that kind of project.

 

[Vaughn McMillan]

I have the iGrill and have run into the range limitations every time I've used it. (Same story with the Bluetooth control on my electric smoker, but it's not something I have to watch as closely as the food temp.) I'll definitely check out the IBBQ4T when the iGrill kicks the bucket.

 

[Darren Wright]

So, do connect directly to the unit via wifi, or can you set it up to connect to your local network, then switch your phone back to your normal wifi connection?

Yeah, you connect it to the home wifi via the phone app, then you can switch your phone back to wifi. I'm not sure if it's using a cloud service or if the phone connects directly with it if internet is down. I'll do some testing to verify how that is working.

I'm going to stick with my overpriced thermoworks unit with no remote access and only two probes for now (if nothing else it forces me to get off of the couch every so often ). I am curious about the probes, they look like something proprietary? The thermoworks uses K type thermocouples which has been handy because I was able to also buy a waterproof one and use it to do things like calibrate tanks at my friends brewery, adjust the temp on my sous vide, etc.. But mine has no remote access and costs ~2x for 1/2 as many probes (plus price/probe) so... yeah tempting in concept though.

Brent - you have a bunch of Pi's and a burning need for yet-another project... and you could add yet-more automation to your setup... https://learn.adafruit.com/max31855-thermocouple-python-library/overview

I believe it's using the cheaper pt100 probes, same as what the igrill uses, but found the mini plug on the inkbird is a bit longer. The igrill probes didn't show any readings when I plugged one of them into it. I plan to run the smoker tomorrow, so will mess around with it and maybe hit the probes with a multi meter and see if maybe they reversed the plug connections or something.

 

[Brent Dowell]

Have to say, so far I'm really liking the inkbird, and teh inkbird app. The base unit actually displays the temperatures of all 4 probes and the phone app is much simpler to use than the weber igrill.

I was able to get the igrill probes to read, but the form factor just doesn't work and they don't maintain a temp.

All in all, pretty satisfied so far.

 

[Darren Wright]

I got around to using mine yesterday again. Was able to go to the shop and keep on top of the cook, never disconnected even once like the Weber did.

 

[Vaughn McMillan]

@Darren Wright and @Brent Dowell , now that you've been running the Inkbird for a while, have you run into any issues?

My iGrill Mini went non-op tonight...says the probe at room temperature is 545º, which I'm pretty sure is off a little bit, lol. I could just buy a new probe, but this is the second one I've bought, and it only lasted a year or so. $100 is a pretty big pill to swallow right now, but it doesn't take too many ruined pieces of meat to pay for itself. And the Inkbird looks like the only real contender in the WiFi arena.

 

[Darren Wright]

@Darren Wright and @Brent Dowell , now that you've been running the Inkbird for a while, have you run into any issues?

My iGrill Mini went non-op tonight...says the probe at room temperature is 545º, which I'm pretty sure is off a little bit, lol. I could just buy a new probe, but this is the second one I've bought, and it only lasted a year or so. $100 is a pretty big pill to swallow right now, but it doesn't take too many ruined pieces of meat to pay for itself. And the Inkbird looks like the only real contender in the WiFi arena.

I'm still happy with mine. I find the app to be a lot simpler than the weber one too.

 

[Brent Dowell]

Loving the inkbird. Way better range than bluetooth and the app is a lot simpler. And the weber app would never actually shut down till I rebooted the phone.

The probes for the weber are 14$ on amazon though. https://www.amazon.com/Weber-iGrill-Pro-Meat-Probe/dp/B01M8LG8U5

I doubt that its the actual igrill that is bad. I've had probes go bad if I was a little too zealous on washing them and got water inside the probe.

That being said, the weber has been relegated to backup status, lol.

 

[Brent Dowell]

Funny this came up, as I was just putting 10# of brisket on the smoker right now. Probably a little late, but we'll see when it decides to finish.

 

[Darren Wright]

I do typically only wash the tips of mine, not the cords. I almost burned them up once by having them on while grilling, they have about a 400* - 500* limit for the material they are made of, so usually only put in after reaching smoking temp after the initial startup.

Looks good Brent!

I've been smoking mine low (225* - 250*) until the stall, then wrapping and raising the temp to about 300* until the internal his 190*, then pulling and putting it in a cooler to rest for an hour. It then goes in the fridge overnight and sliced cold the next day on the slicer.

 

[Brent Dowell]

Yeah, I do like to pre-cook it and then reheat in the sousvide.

I've got some pink butcher paper I use when I do the texas crutch. I'll just have to see how this goes. I may wrap it in the pink paper around 3 or so depending.