Thermometer cam

Powak

Anyone ever mounted a good wireless camera to monitor their dome temp?
like one you watch on your phone from a far. I would almost prefer that to an internal grate monitoring thermo and it would be a good addition to the Meater.

HeavyG

I've never used a cam to monitor a temp but have used one to monitor the firebox of my KBQ.
I've never paid much attention to the dome thermometer but I do occasionally poke one of the probes of my Fireboard thru one of the daisy wheel holes if I want a reading at basically dome temp height.

stlcharcoal

"Back in my day"........A cheap baby monitor used to be the way to monitor temp before all the Wifi and BT digital temp gauges came out.  Video or just audio worked great with a Polder.  We also used lag bolts to make elevated grids, coffee cans to make smokeware caps, and any lump charcoal we could find (that wasn't always easy in the 1990's--even here in Missouri!!)

Langner91

I have a ring cam.  Not the doorbell, but the little wifi camera.  I put it in the garage, pointing at the dome thermo while the egg ran in the rain once.  I didn't want to keep running out in the rain to adjust.

It worked very well.

fishlessman

I just sleep,. Wake up in the morning, make an adjustment in the morning, come back around noon and check on things for low and slows. Don't pay that amount of attention on shorter cooks

RRP

Langner91 said:

I have a ring cam.  Not the doorbell, but the little wifi camera.  I put it in the garage, pointing at the dome thermo while the egg ran in the rain once.  I didn't want to keep running out in the rain to adjust.

It worked very well.

I hope that your garage location doesn’t cause your home to burn to the ground like happened to Chris C (Dizzy Pig Co) when he egged in his garage.

Langner91

The egg was in the rain.  Outside.

The camera was in the garage, pointing at the egg in the rain.  

The camera prevented me from running outside, in the rain, to check temps, etc.

But, good reminder to not egg inside!

Mark_B_Good

I've been in the house, and just used my phone camera zoom (Galaxy s22 Ultra with 100x zoom) to see my dome temp ... from VERY far away! Not exactly what you're talking about, but close. 

Powak

Mark_B_Good said:

I've been in the house, and just used my phone camera zoom (Galaxy s22 Ultra with 100x zoom) to see my dome temp ... from VERY far away! Not exactly what you're talking about, but close. 

My eggs definitely close enough to see the dome temp but I got it turned around so at sunset i can see what I’m cookin.

paqman

I have a wireless camera (Eufy)  mounted above my patio door pointing toward the egg.  It is close enough that I can see the thermometer dial.  I typically rotate  my thermometer so that the temperature I am aiming for is on top so I don’t need to look at digits on the dial.

On long cooks, I typically remove the thermometer and replace it with one of the probes of my wireless thermometer (Thermoworks Smoke).  I purchased their wifi gateway which allowed me to use the app on my phone but it worked only once and hasn’t worked since.

My home is fully automated/intelligent so one of the things that I want to do is add triggers when a specific temperature is reached (ex: turn on a light, play a song).  Another thing is to send notifications.  I have decided to build my own thermometer system for the pool, bbq, etc.  Right now I am testing components and writing code.  The design for the pool is completed, I am waiting for components and I’ll design a PCB.  Next step is the BBQ but with the chips shortage it is difficult to get components for the thermocouple so I may fallback on using a thermistor.

That’s the pool thermometer (which will be enclosed in a waterproof case).  The one thing I am not happy with is the temperature is displayed in C instead of F (the GUI on my phone is set to french).  Us Canadians are mostly using F for food and water temperature but C for ambient temperature.  My main goal is the integration within Apple Homekit which simply doesn’t give the flexibility to set one device to F and another to C because it aggregates data on the summary screen.  I have several “inputs” available on the microcontroller so I will probably use the same one for all my outdoor temperature sensors (pool, bbq, air, soil).  Now you are asking yourself “why is this guy talking about his thermometer project when I asked about cameras?”; the MCU is able to drive a camera (the small black part on top of the metallic component) but I haven’t been able to make it work within Homekit yet and I don’t know how long of a cable it would be able to work with (probably not a good idea to have the whole MCU/battery above the warm dome).  The MCU/battery would need to be fixed to the nest, hinges, or handle with a cable running from the MCU to the camera.

paqman

That’s the camera on top of the MCU

Canugghead

@paqman man you're wired, I like to mess around with gadgets too but you're in a different league   

RyanStl

Search pet camera on Amazon and for $30 you can get a wifi PTZ camera that you can point at your egg.

Dondgc

HeavyG said:

I've never used a cam to monitor a temp but have used one to monitor the firebox of my KBQ.
I've never paid much attention to the dome thermometer but I do occasionally poke one of the probes of my Fireboard thru one of the daisy wheel holes if I want a reading at basically dome temp height.

Two questions- you normally measure temp at the grate? That’s what I do but just wondering…

also - for someone who doesn’t do much high temp cooking, is there any reason to spend more money and give up probes to go with the Fireboard Pro? Thanks. 

wwinnc

Not big on high tech,  I feel like great cooks can be achieved without a lot of gadgets.  Instant read thermo- toothpick, etc.  is all I use.  Thats the beauty of the egg- get it dialed in and let it roll!