Meater Support & Product Suck!

[Traeger-Dennis]

My Review....

Meater Support & Product Suck!

I spent six hours on the phone with tech support over a two day period with no resolution. I feel stupid for letting it go that long. I should have stopped at a half an hour, but you guys kept insisting that you were gonna get working. What does that say about your knowledge about your product? If it takes six hours and you still could not get it to work. I know this post will definitely not make it to the people that need to see it most. Good luck future customers.

Dennis

 

[Manannan]

I have the original Meater block and have found both it and Meater support to be good notwithstanding I now use Thermoworks RFX which better suits my needs.

Sorry to hear about your problems, maybe expanding on the issues you had will help others make a decision as to whether to purchase this product? Or who knows, someone may have had similar issues and could help you?

 

[RayClem]

I use the ThermoPro TempSpike. For a limited time, you can purchase one two-probe unit and get a second unit free.

Buy 1 Get 1 FREE-TP962 Twin TempSpike Wireless Meat Thermometer

Buy 1 Get 1 FREE-TP962 Twin TempSpike Wireless 500-ft Meat Thermometer

buythermopro.com

 

[Like Smoke]

I have been using the Thermopro TP0-6B for sometime, it has been replaced with later versions, but works great. It has a transmitter, receiver and 2 temp probes. I set the receiver in my kitchen and it will alarm me at what ever settings I have established, and I can keep an eye on my temps. Thermopro has a wide selection depending on what style you are looking for.

 

[traeger860]

The user interface on the MEATER app is great. If only it all worked as it was supposed to. Being stuck at "Estimating Cook Time" for 12 hours and then telling me when there's 30 minutes left to go doesn't really help much.

RFX probes and hardware are great. But their app needs some work.

 

[RayClem]

The user interface on the MEATER app is great. If only it all worked as it was supposed to. Being stuck at "Estimating Cook Time" for 12 hours and then telling me when there's 30 minutes left to go doesn't really help much.

RFX probes and hardware are great. But their app needs some work.

Do not be too upset with MEATER predictions. Two seemingly identical pieces of protein can have very different cooking time due to differences in moisture and fat content. When cooking large pieces of meat like brisket, beef roast or pork butt, there is a period of time called the stall where the temperature hardly moves for a long period of time. There is no way MEATER can predict the total cook time in that situation.

 

[Manannan]

Do not be too upset with MEATER predictions.

The Meater estimated cooking time has its uses but also significant limitations, I have found it fine for quite a few things including whole chicken and even turkey up to around 15lb but for others things as per RayClem's post it is best ignored.

The RFX doesn't have an equivalent feature and the estimated cooking time is not something I miss to be honest.

 

[traeger860]

I agree, but they've made it a major selling point of their product. It's not something that can be shut off or ignored in the app. I'd rather see the time adjust throughout the cook than be stuck at "estimating cook time" forever. With all of the users on the platform, they should have more than enough data in their algorithm to guesstimate a cook time upfront and then adjust it in realtime as the ambient & meat temps change.

 

[RustyJake]

Hopefully they get it dialed in over time. It can be somewhat useful in planning and finishing cooks.
Fireboard has two options for time estimates, predictive and comparison.
Predictive uses your current cook time and temperature data to estimate a completion time based on your desired finish temperature. There is the ability to increase the selected time frame it uses to calculate. The more data it has to use, the better it's accuracy. I find it pretty accurate when you are over the halfway point of a cook.
I haven't used the comparison feature yet. It appears that you select a similar cook from your saved cooks and it supposedly uses current temps against what the comparison cooks data provides and calculates a finish time based on your selected finish temp.

 

[Manannan]

It's not something that can be shut off or ignored in the app

Good point, maybe the ability to switch it on and off would be useful. It would also be useful to have the option to hide the Meater ambient temperature, I realise they use it in the algorithm to estimate the cooking time but Meater's ambient temperature is not a true ambient temperature and can be confusing to the uninitiated.

Fortunately I have an inbuilt ability to switch off mentally to unwanted information, my wife tells me this all the time! I can
ignore the unwanted Meater app info almost at will, conversely the Thermoworks RFX app is rather disappointing and basic so we cant have it all ways although the Fireboard of which I have no knowledge sounds better in this respect?

 

[RustyJake]

With the FireBoard app, it has to be initiated through the 'analyze' tab, so it's not always visible. Just when you want to view or use it

 

[RayClem]

Estimated cook times, whether in an ap or in a cookbook recipe are for planning purposes more so than actual cooking. Even when cooking a cake in a conventional oven, you might find you need to adjust the cooking times a few percent one way or the other to get optimal results. Predicting the cook time of a cake is easy as you know the exact ingredients. Cooking protein on a Traeger has a lot more variables than cooking a cake in the oven. Plan your cook based on the estimated cook time, but allow plenty of extra time before guests arrive. You do not want to be trying to finish up the cook while guests are asking "When do we eat?"

 

[traeger860]

Estimated cook times, whether in an ap or in a cookbook recipe are for planning purposes more so than actual cooking. Even when cooking a cake in a conventional oven, you might find you need to adjust the cooking times a few percent one way or the other to get optimal results. Predicting the cook time of a cake is easy as you know the exact ingredients. Cooking protein on a Traeger has a lot more variables than cooking a cake in the oven. Plan your cook based on the estimated cook time, but allow plenty of extra time before guests arrive. You do not want to be trying to finish up the cook while guests are asking "When do we eat?"

Agreed. But when it says "Estimating Cook Time" for 12+ hours, it's impossible to plan anything around it. It might as well just say "I don't know, but we'll tell you when it's 30 mins away from being done".

They have so much data. Years of it. There's no excuse. They know what type of meat you selected in the app. They know the ambient temp of the grill when you started the cook. They know the temp of the meat when you started the cook. They know how long it took for the meat to go from one degree to the next and can cross reference that with the ambient temp. When you blend all of that data together, it should be able to make a ballpark guess a lot sooner. Even if any of the temperature readings aren't accurate. As long as they are consistency inaccurate, the outcome is the same.

I think most of us can look at a brisket and say "this should take anywhere from ____ to ____ hours based on experience and be pretty close. They have way more information than we do. That's why we bought into it.

 

[Traeger-Dennis]

Do not be too upset with MEATER predictions. Two seemingly identical pieces of protein can have very different cooking time due to differences in moisture and fat content. When cooking large pieces of meat like brisket, beef roast or pork butt, there is a period of time called the stall where the temperature hardly moves for a long period of time. There is no way MEATER can predict the total cook time in that situation.

Meater just sucks the support sucks, and
their hardware interface with the software sucks. No one should have to talk 6 hours on the phone technical over a two day period prior to big cook coming up the next day.

I can say they suck because I used them for 3 or 4 years. And had 3 or four different Meater thermometers. Everyone had a problem of some sort.
'

 

[RayClem]

If you ask our most experienced pitmasters here (no I am not one of them)., you will find that they can place two seemingly identical pieces of protein on the smoker and they are likely to differ significantly in their overall cook time. This is due to changes in moisture content, fat content, and connective tissue content.

When cooking pieces of meat that will take more than 12 hours, you might consider cooking it a day ahead of time. Reheat it in the kitchen oven before guests arrive. Many will start the cook shortly before bedtime and then finish it up the next morning. If you wrap the meat in a blanket or towel and then store it in a picnic cooler, it will stay warm for several hours.

Cooking large pieces of meat can take a long time. One thing you can do to speed up the process is to wrap the meat in foil or butcher paper. Allow the meat to cook for several hours uncovered to absorb smoke. Then wrap the meat tightly and allow it to finish cooking. That can cut several hours off the total cook time.