wGrill - Wifi BBQ Thermometer

stevethegreat

Hi all-

Soon after I started egging I was hooked (like many of us) and I knew I needed to get more cool stuff for my egg.  I really wanted a Wi-Fi based stoker (DigiQ, Stoker, Auber, etc.) so I could regulate temp and monitor it over the internet/network. However, the price was pretty hard to choke down.  I ended up getting the IQ110 stoker and buying the wGrill (eBay link).  I haven't heard anyone on this forum mention the product before, which would usually make me pretty weary of a product.  But after reading this review,I decided to go for it.  I have no affiliation with the makers of the wGrill and get no benefit for talking about the product, just passing along knowledge (hopefully).  The wGrill is an AC (or battery pack) powered thermometer with two probes (pit and food) that can be monitored from your phone, tablet, computer, etc.  According to the very hard to understand instructions you can hook it up to your router (vs. an ad-hoc network) and monitor over the internet.  Well that was exactly what I wanted to do....Why? Well, because I can I guess.  I still don't plan on leaving my egg home alone during a cook. So I actually haven't used the wGrill for a cook yet, but I wanted to re-write some of the interface to customize it. Has anyone here used it? Attached is the picture of the interface and how it looks today.

I am a computer (systems) guy, but not a programmer by any means.  I just hacked this together, but now theoretically you should be able to monitor, in real time, a cook from anywhere.  I will have to check back and let everyone know how it actually goes for the first cook, but I'm remaining hopeful.

stevethegreat

Really, no one even interested in a cooking toy? Or does everyone who would be interested in this already have it built into their stoker? I know I hate the range limitation of an RF thermometer like the maverick.

stemc33

I'm interested, just don't have any knowledge about any of the stuff. I want to able to monitor grate and food temp from my iPhone. Ideally it would have parameters that could be set to alert if food or grate is too hot or cold.

badinfluence

I'm not really interested as if I'm at a competition all I would be thinking is someone could hack my system to spoil my cook. IDK could happen.

stemc33

badinfluence said:

I'm not really interested as if I'm at a competition all I would be thinking is someone could hack my system to spoil my cook. IDK could happen.

Hacking a BBQ at a competition. Sounds like a new reality TV show.

stevethegreat

@stemc33‌ well out of the box you can monitor the temp from your iphone. I didn't like carrying the Maverick/Ivation reciever around with me. I already do that with my phone though. The alerts however are a physical/audible feature. I am thinking of incorporating SMS/email into my setup for that reason

@badinfluence‌ I think you have a legitimate concern. If I did competetions I would stick to the controllers I presume you have already. You couldn't necessarily spoil the cook since it's only is a measurement tool, but someone malicious could (likely) access the wGril until it crashed (denial of service attack) and you would lose the ability to monitor the temps.

stemc33

I'll have to investigate this device. Haven't looked at anything yet, but my B-Day is coming in August. Might be worth putting it on the wish list. Got the LBGE last year, so a high-monitor might be doable. Let us know how you like it.

Ragtop99

Have you had a chance to test the accuracy of the system? 

I have a maverick, but I think the wifi/phone based system has merit to it. 

stevethegreat

The next cook I do I will be comparing my Ivation thermomter/thermapen against it. Seems that the two probes are usually 2 degrees apart while next to each other.