Best Smart Meat Thermometers
These tools won't change your life, but they're a nice option for cooks who revel in tech and, of course, a perfectly cooked cut of meat
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A meat thermometer is the only tool that lets you catch the ideal moment between food that’s done perfectly and food that’s far from it. As anyone who’s tried a dry steak or pink chicken breast can attest, a few degrees can make all the difference.
At Consumer Reports, we’ve tested meat thermometers for decades, because we’re big fans of any product that keeps you safe and makes life easier and more delicious. Until recently, most meat thermometers were pretty basic; that changed with the introduction of smart meat thermometers, which use Bluetooth technology to transmit real-time cooking information from a probe to your phone, using an accompanying app. Here, we test four popular models to see whether they really deliver on their promise of perfect food, every time.
Traditional Meat Thermometers vs. Smart Meat Thermometers
Any accurate thermometer will tell you whether your food is cooked, but the difference between smart thermometers and traditional offerings is how that information gets to you. Most traditional meat thermometers are either leave-in or instant-read. The former is a probe you insert into meat before cooking—the needle gradually rises as your food cooks. Instant-read thermometers can be inserted for rapid readings. The drawback to both is that you typically need to open your oven door or raise your grill lid to know where things stand (though some digital leave-in options include a probe wired to a dock that sits outside your oven or grill).
Who Needs a Smart Meat Thermometer?
Nobody truly needs a smart meat thermometer—but if you’re a serious foodie, or nervous in the kitchen, they can be invaluable. That’s doubly true if you’re attempting ambitious foods on a grill or in a smoker. In addition to telling you the temperature inside your food, serious barbecue cooks will appreciate the ability to monitor ambient temperature inside a grill at the same time, which can clue them in as to when a fire has grown too hot, or started to go out.
Beyond the grill, a smart meat thermometer can be immensely helpful for baking and roasting, because they allow you to check on temperatures and get alerts in real time, even if you’re not near your oven.
Anyone who feels perfectly well-served by a traditional thermometer can skip a smart meat thermometer. The same goes for anyone who cooks mostly on top of the stove—these tools certainly work in something like a pan-seared steak, but you can also just as easily check on pan-cooked foods using a regular instant-read thermometer.
How Consumer Reports Tested Smart Meat Thermometers
Consumer Reports recently tested four smart kitchen thermometers made by Meater, MeatStick, ThermoPro, and Yummly.
In our labs, we checked the accuracy of the four smart meat thermometers by submerging the probes in temperature-controlled water baths using a sous-vide machine, and comparing the readings against a calibrated scientific thermometer with precise accuracy. We also considered factors like the number of sensors in each probe, the ease of reading temperatures displayed, whether the thermometers could be used for foods other than meats, and which struggled to pair with their apps or lost connections. It’s these lab results that are reflected in our comprehensive meat thermometer ratings.
In addition, we sent all four probes home with Paul Ritchey, CR’s in-house expert in ergonomics and product usability, to capture how easy the probes are to set up and use with their corresponding apps. Paul tested all four probes using both an iPhone and a Samsung Galaxy, and cooked chicken breast and New York strip steak. Specifically, he considered the following four criteria:
Ease of setup: how easy the product was to unpack and prep for first use, along with how easy it was to download the app and connect the product to each phone.
Ease of use: how easy it was to cook chicken and beef to predetermined temperatures with the probe, while also using the app itself for real-time temperature updates.
Maintenance: how easy it was to download firmware updates for the apps and check the battery life of the probes.
App features: the presence or absence of certain useful features within each app, as well as the quality of key features.
How We Picked the Best Smart Meat Thermometers
Most thermometers can give you at least a ballpark sense of whether food is finished, but to find the models most likely to be the MVP in your kitchen, we insisted that they meet the following criteria:
- They’re accurate. The best models all prove accurate when checked against an ultra-precise, calibrated, scientific thermometer.
- They can be used in different foods. The models here can accurately be used in foods other than meat, including veggies and sauces, and have multiple internal temperature sensors, to ensure accurate readings in a variety of foods.
- They’re fast. These models either offer rapid responses when used as instant-read thermometers, or update in real time when used as leave-in thermometers.
- They’re easy to use. The corresponding apps for the smart meat thermometers here are easy enough to use that you’re guaranteed reliable results. The best apps also provide added functionality, the ability to save past cooks for the same foods.
4 CR-Tested Smart Meat Thermometers
The four smart meat thermometers here, listed alphabetically, were all found to be accurate by our expert testers. They all allow you to pick from a menu of preselected temperatures for doneness of various proteins and cuts of meat, or you can tap in your own preference; some provide a graph during or at the end of your cook, detailing how the temperature rose over time. All four have a transmission range of at least 100 feet, and all four can provide both ambient and internal temperatures—some more conveniently than others. The wireless models all promise to charge in 4 hours or less, while providing 24 to 48 hours of runtime on a charge.
For details on what differentiates each of these thermometers—and why we ultimately favor only three out of the four we tested—read on. Curious as to how they stack up to other meat thermometers we’ve tested in the lab? CR Members can jump right to our comprehensive meat thermometer ratings.
Best Overall: Meater Plus With Bluetooth Repeater
From: $79.96
Where sold: Amazon, Meater
CR’s take: The Meater Plus is a darling of the barbecue world, and it’s easy to see why. For starters, the Meater has exceptionally robust alarm settings. Not only will it ping you when your food is ready, but it will also let you know if the ambient air temperature in your grill drops too low. (This comes in handy when you need to adjust your dampers or add more charcoal). The app also chimes again when resting time is complete.
You can program the app to chime when food is 5 minutes from completion, too. This feature worked well with our oven-baked chicken breast. But with a strip steak, which cooked much faster, the 5-minute alarm didn’t sound until just before the steak needed to be removed from the heat.
The most appealing feature for serious cooks and barbecue fans is that the Meater Plus not only graphs your cook but allows you to rate and leave yourself notes for next time—which is particularly useful if you’re trying to replicate a perfect smoked brisket or rack of ribs.
Photo: Paul Ritchey/Consumer Reports Photo: Paul Ritchey/Consumer Reports
One to Skip: MeatStick X Wireless Thermometer
From: $99.99
Where sold: Amazon, Walmart
CR’s take: As with the Meater Plus, the MeatStick X is best suited for serious barbecuers. You can program it with multiple alarms, and you don’t have to wait till the end for a graph of the cook—you can watch it heating up as it happens.
But the app is less seamless and intuitive than that of the Meater Plus. Setup requires granting the app quite a few permissions, and while you can tap “skip” to avoid creating an account to use it, that button is tiny. What’s more, the individual cuts are first categorized by heat source, not the cut of meat, so if you’re cooking a piece of meat unconventionally (like heating up a New York strip steak in the oven), you might have a hard time finding what you need.
You can set custom temperatures by sliding a cursor along a scale. This was difficult to do on our iPhone mini, but more manageable on the larger screen of our Android. Because of the buttons’ labels on that smaller screen, it’s easy to accidentally start cooking, when you actually just want to save the settings for the cook ahead. Ambient temperature is identified by an unlabeled flame icon, which may be confusing for users who didn’t diligently follow setup instructions.
But the MeatStick X’s biggest shortcoming were issues with connectivity. Both our in-lab engineer and our usability expert experienced instances of the probe failing to stay connected to the app. When that happens, you need to remove the probe, clean it, and re-install it in the dock to sync it to the app. We reached out to the company about the problem but hadn’t heard back at the time of publication.
Photo: Paul Ritchey/Consumer Reports Photo: Paul Ritchey/Consumer Reports
Budget Pick: ThermoPro Smart BT Meat Thermometer TP920
From: $39.99
Where sold: Amazon
CR’s take: The ThermaPro lacks many features the other three smart meat thermometers have and its app doesn’t offer any tutorials or tips on where to place the probe. But it compensates with its refreshingly simple-to-read results—making it a great pick for reasonably confident cooks who merely want the ability to check on food from afar.
This smart meat thermometer is not truly wireless. Instead, two wired probes dock in a rechargeable base station. The base station then uses Bluetooth to transmit real-time cooking information to a paired smartphone. It’s got the longest claimed range (500 feet) of any thermometer here. The base uses a rechargeable internal battery (instead of the typical double As) with a USB charging port, and the manufacturer claims the base can last up to eight months on a single charge.
It’s also the only thermometer here that can’t use a single probe to record both ambient and internal temperature. Instead, you’ll need to insert one probe into your food, and leave the other to record the air temperature near your food. (You can clip the probe to a rack or grate, or drape it over, but just take care not to let the tip of the probe touch the metal rack, which could distort the reading.
Like the others, the app generates a graph of the entire cooking process. But the app seems to start graphing the moment the base is turned on, not when you actually place the food in the oven or grill, so you’ll want to put food in the oven before turning on the base. In addition, you can’t save the results, unless you take a screenshot. And you’ll need to dive into the settings to enable the temperature "pre-alarm," which gives you a heads up that your food is nearly done. However, once you do that, you won’t hear another alarm when the food actually reaches target temperature.
Photo: Paul Ritchey/Consumer Reports Photo: Paul Ritchey/Consumer Reports
Best for Novice Cooks: Yummly Smart Thermometer
From: $79.99
Where sold: Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart
CR’s take: The Yummly smart thermometer splits the difference between the more hard-wired ThermoPro and the more advanced Meater and Meat Stick options. Of the four, the app offers the best user experience, in large part because of its simplicity. But you can’t save or mark specific cooks as favorites, and there are fewer options for setting precise, temperature-specific alarms. For instance, you can’t set any alarms at all for ambient temperature, so you wouldn’t know if the fire for your grill went out unless you checked.
Still, setup is easy, and there’s an especially robust listing of meats, along with recommended internal temperatures. Unlike with the ThermoPro and Meat Stick X, food-specific photos illustrate how to insert the probe, and the Yummly is also the only model here that can remind you to flip food halfway through cooking.
Its “expert” mode provides a countdown, in minutes, along with a real-time graph. You can’t save a graph of your cook, though, unless you take a screenshot before the food enters resting mode—once it does, you can’t see the graph anymore and there’s no way to retrieve it. The Yummly is the only model here that includes a tool for safely removing the probe from food without burning your fingers, a nice touch.
Photo: Paul Ritchey/Consumer Reports Photo: Paul Ritchey/Consumer Reports
